V Rising is a hybrid ARPG with survival-crafting elements, sorta like Diablo meets Age of Conan. The approach is pretty novel, but there are some awkward elements that diminish the experience a little bit.

To start, I am playing solo on a “private server,” which is basically just single-player (like with ARK, Conan, etc). However, it is very, very obvious that the game is centered around and balanced on a more public, multiplayer and even PvP experience. For example, by default, you cannot use any of the Waypoint portals if you have ANY resources in your inventory. This option can mercifully be changed in the server settings, but the map itself consists of lanes, specific camps of NPCs, and then dozens and dozens of nondescript castle areas. Which is great for multiplayer servers (options!) and PvP (lanes forces players into channels for encounters), sure. But there really aren’t any exploration aspects, no map secrets, no particular reason to go to out of the way areas. Unless, of course, you were hiding from/laying in wait for other players.

The progression system is also a bit weird. First, there is no XP. Instead, your character’s power is based on Gear Score – you deal/receive damage based on the difference in Gear Score between you and your foe. Increasing one’s Gear Score is achieved by unlocking technology via killing bosses and consuming their “V Blood.” This is not necessarily a linear process though. Killing the boss that gives you a Workbench to craft better weapons results in a huge power boost. Other bosses might just give you ability to turn into spider, or upgrade gems into better ones, or similar. You can tackle the bosses in any order (provided you have a decent Gear Score), but nevertheless there are times when things end up… uneven. For example, I just upgraded all my armor and now find myself ~10 Gear Score higher than like eight bosses I have yet to kill. And none of those bosses will see me improve my Gear Score at all.

Progression-wise, it is also worth mentioning that there is a recipe/research component as well. You can unlock Copper weapons by killing the appropriate boss, but getting the next “Merciless Copper” tier requires the recipe to drop from random loot. Sometimes you can purchase the recipe from a vendor’s random stock, and other times you can randomly learn it by consuming Paper or whatever at a Research Desk. So, random, but with grindable guardrails.

Having said all that, is the game even fun?

I guess. I mean… probably? Sure.

At the time of this writing, I show ~22 hours /played. My solo server has loot bumped up 2x, item stacks 3x, Waypoint access on, Durability and Castle decay basically turned off (25% of normal). I don’t feel “bad” about these custom settings because, just like with my time with ARK, the “normal” settings are absurd nonsense. You can dispatch vampire servants to collect resources for you, but they take real-world hours (2h min, 24h max) to return. Considering you have to grind resources to craft equipment for them to wear so they can… err… help you skip grinding resources, they are of questionable merit. Of course, the servants could help defend your castle from other players trying to break it down and steal your resources, if you were into that sort of thing.

From a strict, gameplay-only sense, V Rising is OK. It’s a kind of Diablo-lite where you can hotswap weapons to mix and match abilities (which share cooldowns), while also tailoring your two spell slots and one ultimate move to your preferences and/or the boss’ tactics. Enemies are fairly straight-forward where I’m at in the game, but the environmental factors add layers to strategy. For example, there are patrols of NPCs not just within each camp, but also throughout the lanes in the world. These patrols can include bosses, sometimes ones way beyond the difficulty of the area too. This brings opportunities as well though, as sometimes patrols can be lured into attacking other factions or even having two bosses attack each other! This makes the world feel a lot more interesting than what I normally see in the genre.

Anyway, I’m still playing V Rising and have every expectation to keep playing for now. Whether that is due to the underlying gameplay being better than I am giving it credit for, or because I am starved for new survival-crafting experiences, I cannot say. What I can say is that if you expect a Diablo experience, you will be disappointed. I definitely spend more time hitting rocks with a mace than I do hitting enemies for loot. But don’t expect something akin to Terraria/Starbound either, because the crafting is prescriptive and environment static. So… yeah. V Rising is its own thing and it’s fun enough for now.