500,000 vampires have already sunk their fangs into survival game V Rising

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The early access survival game from Battlerite dev Stunlock Studios only launched 3 days ago, and it's already a hit.

V Rising leather guide
(Image credit: Stunlock Studios)

If you haven't pointed your eyes at the Steam stats lately, a new early access survival game has been climbing them like a rat up a drainpipe. And who's turning that rat into a gooey health-restoring vermin salve? Vampires. That's who.

Vampire survival game V Rising is officially a hit. According to developer Stunlock Studios (you might know them from 2017's Battlerite), a whopping 500,000 players have already sunk their fangs into the V Rising, which is amazing because it only just launched on Steam this past Tuesday. It definitely ticks a lot of popular boxes, with a big open world, survival systems, base-building and crafting, plus PvP and PvE as well as co-op and solo play.

When I looked about an hour ago V Rising also showed around 95,000 concurrent players on Steam, which has now risen (like the undead) to just over 100,000. And I expect it'll continue to draw (like blood) more players over the weekend. 

Some of us here at PC Gamer have been playing it, too. Fraser wrote that despite some easy comparisons, V Rising is more than just Valheim with vampires. And, quite fittingly for a vampire game, it kept him up all night playing.

Jody is also a vampire, though he doesn't really feel like one due to V Rising's rather heavy focus on resource gathering. I sorta agree—when I think of vampires in pop-culture, they're typically not spending hours smashing ore boulders with a huge mace so they can smelt a few copper bars. But I'm still having a good time slowly growing in power, transforming into a wolf, sucking blood out of local bandits, and trying not to let the sun burn me to a crisp during daylight hours.

If you're thinking of getting started, we've got a few guides for beginners, like how V Rising's blood essence works, plus how to craft leather, where to get stone bricks, and how to find whetstones. Good hunting, you bloodsuckers. 

Christopher Livingston
Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.