Everything you need to know about V Rising

The music of the children of the night grows ever sweeter. After centuries of slumber, you have awoken. A vampire, the feared nightstalker. And you can sense an absence in this world of Vardoran, a delicious absence of power. And it is only right that you fill that absence, and woe be upon any that oppose you, and may the ever fading light of day be their only refuge.

V Rising is a new MMO from Stunlock Studios, where players take on the role of a newly awakened vampire, ready to attain land, blood, minions, and power, with the ultimate goal of becoming this world’s new Dracula.

You start the game as a weakling Vampire awakening from a graveyard, and yet, like all vampires, you are driven by both slavering hunger and ambition. What is one to do? For starters, don’t go around killing everything you see. Vampires may be hunters, but they hunt for a purpose. For blood. For equipment. For knowledge. Make sure that when you’re starting fights, you’ve got a purpose in mind, so that way you don’t stick around to lose a fight you had already won.

Vampires need blood for several things, to keep themselves alive, to power their vampiric magics, even to gift themselves the abilities of the blood’s former owner. In the cases of particularly powerful blood, a vampire may learn to twist their shape into new forms, or learn new spells. As for equipment, much as in Destiny 2, your gear is your level, so getting the best equipment is of paramount importance to ensure your domination in a fight, and lessen or even negate some of the negative effects of being a vampire. For while there are many perks to vampirism, it makes the sun, silver, and garlic into deadly opponents.

The sun is the most prevalent threat, as each long night is followed by a short but blistering day. You will need to stick to the shadows, as even a few moments in the sun is enough to turn any vampire into a pile of ash. This makes it very important to leave some shadow sources intact while gathering resources. You don’t want your vampire caught out in the sun with nowhere to hide. Silver is a less deadly, but more innocuous threat. Contact with anything silver does a very small amount of damage on its own. However, silver is also made into jewelry, and an unaware vampire might put it on, and find that they are unable to use several of their powers as they are being dealt just enough damage to break their concentration. Garlic is used as a protective ward by many villages. Crossing into garlic protected territory will slowly make your vampire simultaneously weaker and more noticeable, causing the townsfolk to gather into a mob intent on your demise.

After gathering a sufficient amount of power and supplies, you’ll be able to begin creating your vampiric dwelling. You’ll start by making the Castle’s Heart. Much like yourself, your castle requires blood to live, and you will need to feed it, lest your domain shrivel and die. This serves two purposes, both putting a tax on the players rich enough to start their own lands, while also pruning the players who haven’t logged in for long enough to let their castle die. While making your domain, there are several things to keep in mind, starting, of course, with location. Using the map you can see where other vampires have taken to calling home, but there’s also proximity to other locations to think about, such as towns, roads, and gathering areas. Roads are especially tricky, as not only players walk down them, but patrols from various factions of NPCs, and none of those are people you would want stumbling into your lair.

For a game recently released to early access, this MMO has a depth and breadth to its mechanics rarely seen, and a player base that is already hungering for more. Are you ready to become the scourge of this land? To spread their agents across every corner of the map to enact your will? You and your clan will have to prove you have what it takes.