At yesterday’s Xbox Partner Preview showcase, developer Poncle announced the first official spinoff its wildly popular time killer Vampire Survivors. Titled Vampire Crawlers, the game combines dungeon crawling and deck building into a smorgasbord of chunky, pixely goodness that should potentially scratch the same itch as its predecessor. It also gives the locations and enemies of Vampire Survivors something of a do-over, as the game is entirely first-person.
Speaking to Xbox Wire, Poncle CEO Luca said, “This is just a spin-off of Vampire Survivors – hopefully the first in a series of spinoffs! The idea is to take some of the core pillars behind the development of VS and to apply them to existing genres.” To him, that means things like accessibility, affordability, replayability, and uncomplicated gameplay. That doesn’t mean there won’t be depth to the proceedings, but Vampire Survivors is known for letting players shut off their brains and simply exist in the game world with little hassle.
Surprisingly, development of Vampire Crawlers began shortly after Vampire Survivors became an early-access hit. Luca estimates that it has been in development for roughly four years, some of which I’m sure was dedicated to buffing out Survivors and conjuring up some incredible crossover DLC. “We’ve been calling these ‘experiments’, Luca said, “and Vampire Crawlers was the one that immediately hit its goal. Even in the prototype phase, you could tell the game had legs. It’s the one that proceeded faster than any other, which is why it’s the first one we’re seeing.”
When will Vampire Crawlers release?
Vampire Crawlers is scheduled for release in 2026 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices. It will also be available on Xbox Game Pass day one.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
