It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that Vampire Survivors have rocked the gaming genres a bit.
Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors
Release Date: April 21, 2026
Genres: Strategy, Indie, Adventure
The small, silly tribute to Castlevania and bullet hells has not only gained incredible popularity, but also codified a genre that wasn’t really a big thing before, spawning clones, inspiring new evolutions of the formula (like Deep Rock Galactic Survivor), and, now, having its own cool spin-off in a fully different genre!
Vampire Crawlers is strongly inspired by classic dungeon crawlers, the kind 2012’s Legend of Grimrock or 2018’s Bard’s Tale tried to revive for at least a brief adventure.
VC has a first-person perspective, grid-based movement, monsters semi-randomly placed on the map of each level, and each run is a short dungeon crawl composed of several stages, each implied to lie deeper than the last. Classic.
Vampire Crawlers Demo Impressions – Our Crew Is In
What isn’t classic, is that here you fight using a deck of cards representing weapons and buffs, all of which can be upgraded one way or another.
The weapons even have evolutions, like in Survivors, and over the course of a run you gather quite a deck.
It would be silly to compare this to Balatro, but it is kind of Balatro: playing cards in the right order gives you combo multipliers to everything, buffs can make your damage and hand size skyrocket, and even in just the demo you can have the true Vampire Survivors experience of the screen flooded with special effects as you throw a lot of random bu%^#&it at the encounter.
So that’s it for the general idea. We have played the demo ourselves and are waiting for the full release of Vampire Crawlers on April 21st, so it’s a good time to give our demo impressions and some speculation and hope for the full version.
Artur
Demo Impressions
Alright, I gotta tell you about this demo because it kinda caught me off guard.
Looking at the screenshots on the Steam page, I already knew what to expect. I didn’t think it would turn out to be such a strong contender though.
I’ll be honest with you – I never caught the hype for Vampire Survivors. I played the game more as podcast filler than actual entertainment.
But card games? That’s my thing. I love them.
Hearthstone gave me thousands of hours of top-tier fun, Slay the Spire 2 is something I’ve been playing since day 1 (not to mention tabletop card games like MtG or my beloved and “dead” for many years now WarCry).
That’s why I’m waiting for this new vampire game, which will bring new challenges spiced up with powerful combos and tough bosses, with a certain dose of impatience.
Solid 8/10 for a demo.
Full game hopes
With the full version I hope for even more fun that I had with the demo. I can’t think of any improvements or changes that might appear in the final version of the game, but who knows. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Bartek “Resurrect”
Demo Impressions
Vampire Survivors gave me dozens of hours of amazing “brain-off” gameplay, so naturally I got insanely hyped when Vampire Crawlers was revealed. Once we got access to the demo, it only took a few minutes for me to realize this was going to be a day-one purchase.
I’ve never played a dungeon crawler before – let alone one set in the world of one of my favorite games. The demo delivered everything I could have hoped for: core mechanics, meta progression, different characters (or decks), and multiple maps directly inspired by Vampire Survivors.
Full game hopes
My expectations for the full version are simple – more of everything. More effects, more chaos, more insanity on screen.
I’m also honestly hoping that Vampire Crawlers follows in the footsteps of Vampire Survivors and keeps expanding through DLC. If that happens, we could be looking at a game that stays in our libraries for a very, very long time.
Crow Fitzroy
Demo Impressions
I don’t dabble in card games usually, but I think Midnight Suns broke me well enough that I can squeeze into the shape Vampire Crawlers require me to have. It certainly helps that
- I like the original game and its sense of humour
- Vampire Crawlers is a singleplayer PvE, which is just as I like the games I play.
I had a ball with the demo, had to drag myself forcefully from maxxing out all I can in order to leave more things to do in the full version.
From what I’ve seen so far, the game does a fantastic job adapting 2D locations for 3D crawling, and the familiar mechanics into a completely different genre.
I am hooked and will want to get the full version on Day 1.
Full game hopes
The trailers already show that my main desire will be fulfilled: the absolute chaos of particles and floating numbers resulting from using a good combo of effects. Other than that, I don’t think demo left me hungry for any specific QoL or gameplay improvement. The full game might, but that’s still in the (very near) future.
Seal of anticipation
It’s rare that more than two people on our crew are excited for the same game (that’s what you get when working with bunch of boomers), but Vampire Crawlers seem to have broken the limiter and enjoys the full power of our excitement for the full version.
For now we’re waiting for April 21st, and there is a very good chance we’re going to have more Vampire Crawlers stuff coming from that point on, so stay crawlin’.