Not everybody bought into Vampire Survivors. The 2021 game popularized the idea of “bullet heaven,” a reversal of elements normally seen in “bullet hell” games, and made such a huge impact on the industry that some call this subgenre “Survivors-likes.” But while Vampire Survivors was a giant leap, it wasn’t a wholly satisfying one for some. Blood Dungeon, a new “bullet hell” from Nidhogg and Wheel World developer Messhof, runs with some of the ideas that made Survivors a hit, fleshing them out and helping define the future of the genre Vampire Survivors sired.
The chief hallmarks of a “Survivors-like” are automatic combat, hordes of enemies that get stronger with every wave, and the kind of randomized upgrades found in roguelikes. You see it in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, Brotato, and 20 Minutes Till Dawn, and there’s even a Breakout-inspired brick-busting riff called Ball X Pit. The RPG-style progression acts like a hook to keep you playing, but the fundamental passivity of their indirect combat, and the inherent unpredictability and impermanence of those upgrades, can be off-putting. And Vampire Survivors itself has an aesthetic that overtly evokes Castlevania, with very similar artwork and environments, which makes it look a little uninspired.
I know not everybody bought into Vampire Survivors, because I didn’t really myself. I had a fixation with it for a short spell in 2022, and still find it preferable to many of the games inspired by it, but ultimately it’s about as hollow as its biggest critics allege. If any game can be called a “walking simulator,” it’s this one, as walking is all you do–moving left, right, up, and down, with no tactility or physical friction–just endless swarms of monsters desperate to mulch you up as you glide around its wide-open, top-down levels. Its whole personality feels canned, prefab, as interchangeable as its Konami-aping art. Good for its developer that they struck gold with their work, but it never really hooked me, personally.
