The developer of early access vampire survival game V Rising has revealed new details about the big free expansion coming this year, including some good news about its scheduled release date: it’s not that far off, it’s coming in May instead of later in the year. despite the major additions and changes it will introduce.
The latest V Rising dev blog focuses on some changes the team made to the trinket system discussed late last year. The original design had jewels built into individual weapons and magic gear, the developers found this too restrictive for players.
“This discouraged vampires from adapting and exploring all the deadly possibilities available to them,” the developers write. “It’s important to us that this system provides more freedom in the choice and variety of spells to satisfy your dark desires.”
Instead, gems will slot into every spell, and as long as they’re equipped, you won’t drop them when you die. You can only use one jewel per ability, but they will stay there until you remove them to exchange them for another bonus.
The update will also apply a major overhaul to V Rising’s five main schools of magic, giving the spell subdivision a stronger identity and better cohesion by adding effects that stack with each other. Stunlock says he wants to encourage “the leaning towards individual magical archetypes” without making it too beneficial: there should still be room to mix and match spells from different schools.
Since everyone is playing as vampires, it makes sense for Stunlock to enhance blood magic with an automatic leech effect. Each of the other schools of magic has also caught the eye, so be sure to check out the blog for a full rundown.
The studio says it’s also experimenting with a new system that allows players to claim land instead of expanding their castles tile by tile from the starting core. The details of this are still a bit up in the air, as the new concept means you’ll only be able to build on current points of interest rather than where you want to.
Finally, Stunlock says the May update won’t mean V Rising is over: the full release is still slated for 2024.
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