I picked this up on recommendation from a friend because he knew how much I liked playing Valheim and Diablo. He said that this game is basically a cross between those two games, BUT you're a vampire...and his description was pretty spot on. The action plays similar to Diablo, but you also get the base building and good size open world, similar to Valheim, with several different bosses throughout that grant you new vampire powers and crafting stations to become powerful enough to take out the next boss.

I've played for nearly 150 hours so far and have enjoyed almost every bit of it. Well worth $20, but I caught it while it was on sale.

While I have quite a bit of praise for the game, I do have a few criticisms also. One is the camera that you can't change without mods(it'd be nice to be able to zoom out farther and rotate in all directions without needing third party mods), secondly, the balance of the powers and weapons are pretty slanted(meaning that there are obvious dos and donts, I'd like to see things a little more balanced so the player can choose based on their own play style), and the fact that the world is static(the map is always the same, the bosses are in the same location, the camp locations are the same, etc. and I'd like to see maybe randomly generated worlds or even just a few different layouts of the existing map so everything isn't exactly the same every time, it would help with the replay value for sure).

And now, real quick...I want to acknowledge a few things that others have said about the game.

Yes, your Castle Heart can run out of blood and start to decay, and when that happens, other players can take over your base or destroy it, and it doesn't matter if it's a pvp or pve server. While that sounds like a terrible thing, really it's not that bad, especially when compared to other popular games that allow other players to actively attack your base at literally all times regardless... This makes sure that some random kid doesn't play for 10 minutes and never play again, but hold a piece of prime real estate forever... People who play regularly or even semi-regularly will have absolutely no problem with keeping blood supplied to the heart. You get blood essence from literally everything that you kill that has blood, your base is powered by the blood essence and crafting stations won't work without it so you HAVE to keep blood in there to play, and even if your Castle Heart is the lowest level, when it's full of blood you get several days before it starts to decay, and going to the 2nd level only requires some very basic materials, which lets you fill up to almost a full week of time, AND another thing, if you build your base right, it's more likely that other players will just move on because it's too much of a hassle to bother with, unless they really want the location or are just trolling...

Another big thing that happens that people complain about is other players can grief others by building their base in such a way that you can't get around it, and they can cut you off from getting back INTO or OUT OF your base. To combat this, just keep in mind that other players can't build near or on roads, cliffs, or where environment blocks them, so use that to your advantage and choose your location wisely.

The last big thing is people complaining about the PvP aspect. Players get on new servers or on fresh wipes and just play as hard as they can, get OP really fast, and then just kill this ♥♥♥♥ out of new players, and while I don't really get the joy of ruining someone else's fun, other people do, but luckily this problem is easily solved... You don't want other players to kill you...don't play on a server where they can...period. When you ♥♥♥♥♥ that someone killed you on a game where people are supposed to kill you, you sound stupid. The game isn't bad...you just didn't want to be on the ♥♥♥♥ end of being able to kill someone who is too weak to fight back... Go play on a PvE server and enjoy your life...not every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game has to be all about killing other players...

Anyway, it's a great game and I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of improvements and new content they come up with. It's still an "early access game" which, these days, can be a good thing or a bad thing...so, I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

I picked this up on recommendation from a friend because he knew how much I liked playing Valheim and Diablo. He said that this game is basically a cross between those two games, BUT you're a vampire...and his description was pretty spot on. The action plays similar to Diablo, but you also get the base building and good size open world, similar to Valheim, with several different bosses throughout that grant you new vampire powers and crafting stations to become powerful enough to take out the next boss. I've played for nearly 150 hours so far and have enjoyed almost every bit of it. Well worth $20, but I caught it while it was on sale. While I have quite a bit of praise for the game, I do have a few criticisms also. One is the camera that you can't change without mods(it'd be nice to be able to zoom out farther and rotate in all directions without needing third party mods), secondly, the balance of the powers and weapons are pretty slanted(meaning that there are obvious dos and donts, I'd like to see things a little more balanced so the player can choose based on their own play style), and the fact that the world is static(the map is always the same, the bosses are in the same location, the camp locations are the same, etc. and I'd like to see maybe randomly generated worlds or even just a few different layouts of the existing map so everything isn't exactly the same every time, it would help with the replay value for sure). And now, real quick...I want to acknowledge a few things that others have said about the game. Yes, your Castle Heart can run out of blood and start to decay, and when that happens, other players can take over your base or destroy it, and it doesn't matter if it's a pvp or pve server. While that sounds like a terrible thing, really it's not that bad, especially when compared to other popular games that allow other players to actively attack your base at literally all times regardless... This makes sure that some random kid doesn't play for 10 minutes and never play again, but hold a piece of prime real estate forever... People who play regularly or even semi-regularly will have absolutely no problem with keeping blood supplied to the heart. You get blood essence from literally everything that you kill that has blood, your base is powered by the blood essence and crafting stations won't work without it so you HAVE to keep blood in there to play, and even if your Castle Heart is the lowest level, when it's full of blood you get several days before it starts to decay, and going to the 2nd level only requires some very basic materials, which lets you fill up to almost a full week of time, AND another thing, if you build your base right, it's more likely that other players will just move on because it's too much of a hassle to bother with, unless they really want the location or are just trolling... Another big thing that happens that people complain about is other players can grief others by building their base in such a way that you can't get around it, and they can cut you off from getting back INTO or OUT OF your base. To combat this, just keep in mind that other players can't build near or on roads, cliffs, or where environment blocks them, so use that to your advantage and choose your location wisely. The last big thing is people complaining about the PvP aspect. Players get on new servers or on fresh wipes and just play as hard as they can, get OP really fast, and then just kill this shit out of new players, and while I don't really get the joy of ruining someone else's fun, other people do, but luckily this problem is easily solved... You don't want other players to kill you...don't play on a server where they can...period. When you bitch that someone killed you on a game where people are supposed to kill you, you sound stupid. The game isn't bad...you just didn't want to be on the shit end of being able to kill someone who is too weak to fight back... Go play on a PvE server and enjoy your life...not every single fucking game has to be all about killing other players... Anyway, it's a great game and I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of improvements and new content they come up with. It's still an "early access game" which, these days, can be a good thing or a bad thing...so, I guess we'll just have to see what happens.