“Pardon me, but your teeth are in my neck…”
Hailing from Katowice, Poland is newcomer indie dev: Mehuman Games (made up of former devs from Movie Games Lunarium) with their first title: Vampires: Bloodlord Rising. Part settlement sim, part survival RPG, Vampires: Bloodlord Rising is an ambitious indie title that seeks to do its titular bloodsuckers justice, drawing inspiration from some of the best that the genre has to offer. Publisher: Toplitz Productions is primarily known for the successful Medieval Dynasty, of which Vampires: Bloodlord Rising was originally going to be a part of the same franchise (originally titled Vampire Dynasty) so the last-minute shift has left some familiar DNA if you’re a fan of the publisher’s other work. Having released on steam early access on the 30th January 2026, I’ll be covering off the time I’ve spent with the game so far; detailing the good and deconstructing the bad, whilst ultimately giving my opinions on whether the game is worth your time and money at the £16.81 asking price (Steam UK Storefront).
When it comes to creatures in horror that have been resurrected, left to desiccate only to then be resurrected again, I can’t think of any being more fitting than the humble vampire. Despite having their origins largely attributed to Eastern European folklore, the vampire has gone on to dominate popular media at multiple points over the last 200 years, spanning poetry, literature, to being one of the preeminent figures of classic horror movies in cinema. Thanks in large part to Bela Lugosi’s performance in Universal’s Dracula (1931), the suave, pale aristocrat with a hypnotising persona and cheesy eurotrash accent is what many consider to be the blueprint of the modern cinematic vampire, in place of the more repulsive, bestial nature of Count Orlok in 1922’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. Neoclassical stylings aside, vampires in modern pop culture have gone through various iterations over the last thirty years; with the tortured, emotional undead seen in Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire (1994) to the stylish, bloodsucker syndicates seen in Blade (1998) dominating the late 90’s and early 2000’s, with it later going down the teenage romance route in the 2010’s following the booming success of the film Twilight (2008), turning the once fearsome creatures into immortal teenagers who sparkle in the sun (say what you want, but Udo Kier knew how to die as a vampire). More recent ventures have seen a renaissance back into the older style of aesthetic for a vampire movie, most notably with Robert Egger’s excellent remake of the 1922 original: Nosferatu (2024) which saw a revival of the creature’s gothic horror origins albeit stylising Count Orlok on a 16th Century Hungarian military officer that had all the life drained out of them, offering a solid juxtaposition between the grotesque Orlok in the 1922 original, and the suave, hypnotising Dracula of Bela Lugosi.
The renaissance of the traditional vampire is not entirely contained to film neither, as there have been many prolific video games over the course of the last decade such as Vampyr, and even more recently Resident Evil Village that have taken inspiration from the more traditional origins for the creatures (read my reviews for both titles here and here respectively). Sticking to their Slavic folklore roots, Mehuman Games have opted to continue this return to form by opting for a traditional vampire aesthetic in their first title as a studio: Vampires: Bloodlord Rising (previously under development as Vampire Dynasty) which went into early access at the end of last month. Vampires: Bloodlord Rising places you in the silk slippers of a vampire called Dragos, who (along with his brother: Razvan) were sired by the elder vampire: Vorago, after a plague swept through their village and killed their families. After an age of peaceful coexistence and trade with humans, Vorago’s clan of vampires soon became the target of the Inquisition, a band of vampire hunters who unleashed a spell known as the silver veil (think garlic mist) which forced the clan’s survivors underground following the slaying of Vorago. After some time in a deep sleep, Dragos and Razvan re-awaken and make their way to the ruins of their master’s old keep; intent on finding a way to rid the land of the silver veil, Dragos soon goes on a bloody campaign to claim back the lands once controlled by his forebears, learning the truth behind his Master’s demise in the process. As Vampires: Bloodlord Rising is in early access, what is available is essentially the first chapter in a much bigger narrative, and whilst intriguing, the cheesy voice acting, short runtime (I completed the main story in about 8 hours) and lack of conversation animations won’t be leaving any memorable moments in it’s current state, just something to bear in mind if you’re thinking of picking this one up soon and was thinking it might be heavy on the lore/story front.
Permit me to introduce myself: Dragos hits the nail on the coffin when it comes to the classical aesthetics of the modern cinematic vampire.
In terms of gameplay, this is arguably the biggest area of Vampires: Bloodlord Rising that you will sink your fangs into. Part settlement sim, part RPG, from the outside in, a lot of people might think this looks very similar to V Rising, but despite both games having a similar sounding name, the two are completely different in nearly every aspect. Vampires: Bloodline Rising is closer in scope to the popular game by the same publisher: Medieval Dynasty, in that it’s first and foremost a settlement sim. Dragos has a symbiotic relationship between the villagers of Medresti (the town underneath Vorago’s former castle) either as food, commerce or just a source of information. On a base level, villager NPC’s serve as a convenient snack if you’re running low on blood, however if you scare them or kill them around other NPC’s, then the daily taxes will reduce and news will spread to the Inquisition, making your life that much more difficult as a bloodsucker. The smart play will be to make use of Drago’s aristocrat form, which you can change into on the fly, allowing you to converse with NPC’s, collect taxes and trade with the locals without them running away at the mere sight of you. This directly plays into the game’s economy and crafting system, as the villagers themselves can offer hints/rumours as to what certain NPCs are known for (i.e. a villager might have been able to take down a bear on their own) which can give clues/hints as to which NPC’s would make good vampires, which you can turn into by giving them the Kiss of Eternity by sneaking behind them in Hunter mode. The system (whilst basic in early access) allows you to fine tune your clan of vampires, assigning certain vampires to specific roles like resource gathering, or building material crafting etc. allowing you time to pursue other opportunities to gain power, whilst your minions do the brunt of the repetitive grind. Conversely, if you find yourself wanting to build you castle yourself brick by brick, then Dragos has a near unlimited carry capacity, that doesn’t slow him down when exceeded, coupled with a sprint speed that would give Usain Bolt a run for his money and the usual resource gathering of survival games is already significantly less of a chore.
In terms of exploration, other segments of the map are unlocked by feeding blood into the core (either through vampires assigned to it, or by offering your own blood) and upgrading it to clear the silver veil from the other three regions of Sangavia. The core is where Dragos’ Castle is based alongside the village of Medresti; Hell’s Chasm is a volcano-laden mountainous biome, The Grove of Sorrows acts as a surreal, hippy commune (big on the bioluminescence) and the Fey Marshes act as the medieval equivalent of the Louisiana Bayou; each biome has it’s own cast of characters and respective missions leading to Dragos’ reclaiming the old vampiric stronghold in the respective area (think vampire waystations) that ultimately lead to having greater control over the land. The systems are a bit basic in their current iteration, but there’s a solid foundation for what’s to come. In terms of exploration and combat, these are some of the areas that require the most amount of work from a development point of view. Combat boils down to repetitive quick attacks and dodging before being hit, prioritizing ranged units first and then slowly whittling down tankier enemies. Whilst easy to pick up, it lacks any real kind of variation; pockets of enemies usually are found in camps that has the usual assortment of loot that can be traded. One of the main things to keep an eye out for are glowing blue crystals, which are the essences of slain vampires called “vampire’s tears”, which basically act as skill points. Skill progression is directly tied to exploration, and whilst the biomes do differ, the points of interest largely remain the same. The game only features a few skill lines at this stage, but if I can recommend any, it would be to aim for bat form as soon as possible, it makes traversal that much easier, especially in areas such as Hell’s Chasm.
The Mile High Club: Traversal in Vampires: Bloodlord Rising is already pretty solid, but made all the more accessible once you unlock bat form.
In terms of performance, this is obviously going to be dependant on your own hardware. For myself, I play on a Lenovo Legion 5 with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU with 32GB of RAM and an Intel Core i7-14650HX; on the medium preset with high textures I was getting around 80fps on average at a resolution of 1440p on my Lenovo Legion R27q-30 monitor (27.2”) with only minor jumps up and down in terms of FPS, if you experience this, locking your FPS to 60 helps greatly. Graphically the game isn’t the most impressive, presenting itself a bit like an early PlayStation 4 title. Despite this, the game manages to maintain its own charm, despite some rough edges. The soundtrack also deserves a mention, as the ambient soundscape captures the medieval vampire aesthetic perfectly, especially the backing ambience when floating around the castle. All in all, Vampires: Bloodlord Rising is a charming (yet flawed) initial foundation of what is an extremely original concept in gaming, taking some of the best elements of the settlement sim genre and crafting an experience where there really is nothing similar on the market. The rough edges will no doubt improve over time, as aforementioned, this is a game in early-access. Definitely one to pick up if you love anything to do with vampires, or even to support what the game might eventually become, however in its current state, it’s lacking bite.
A PC (Steam) code was provided by Toplitz Productions.
This review is featured on OpenCritic.
