New Vampire Game on Steam Combines the Best of Valheim with a Focus on Story

Since its Early Access launch in 2021, Valheim has become one of the most influential survival games in recent memory. Its blend of brutal exploration, cooperative play, and atmospheric worldbuilding helped redefine what players expect from open-world survival sandboxes. Even years into Early Access, Valheim continues to evolve, serving as a blueprint for games that want to balance freedom, danger, and discovery.

Now, an upcoming vampire survival game looks poised to build on that foundation in a very different direction. Vampires: Bloodlord Rising, launching in Steam Early Access on January 30, 2026, takes many of Valheim’s most compelling concepts and recontextualizes them through a gothic fantasy lens that places narrative, power, and identity at the center of the experience: open-world exploration, base-building, and co-op progression.

Where Valheim asks players to prove themselves to the Norse pantheon through survival, Vampires: Bloodlord Rising asks a more intimate question: what kind of ruler will you become when the night belongs to you?

Vampires: Bloodlord Rising Features at a Glance

• A vast, gothic open world set in the cursed land of Sangavia—a setting that will feel familiar to D&D fans of the moody Barovia
• Castle building as a core progression system, not just a shelter
• Vampire-specific survival mechanics, including blood feeding and evolution
• Distinct vampiric forms, such as Aristocrat and Hunter, depending on your avatar’s needs
• Thrall and servant systems for crafting, hunting, and defense
• Skill-based combat against humans, beasts, and the Inquisition
• Solo play or 4-player co-op, with shared or diverging choices

A Shared Love for Open Worlds—But With Very Different Souls

At a glance, Bloodlord Rising and Valheim share familiar DNA. Both drop players into hostile, mysterious open worlds where survival depends on preparation, exploration, and smart progression. In Valheim, players traverse procedurally generated biomes inspired by Norse mythology, each with distinct enemies, resources, and bosses that gate advancement. Discovery is constant, and danger is always close.

Bloodlord Rising mirrors that sense of scale, but its open world of Sangavia feels more deliberately authored. Rather than procedural biomes, the land is steeped in gothic atmosphere. Mist-shrouded regions, ancient ruins, and territories unlocked by feeding the Castle Core (your home base) with blood. Exploration isn’t just about finding better resources; it’s about reclaiming lost power and uncovering the history of a fallen vampire dominion.

The Living Are Taking Note of Your Every Move in Bloodlord Rising

Where Valheim’s biomes challenges players through environmental hostility, including storms, cold, and monsters, Bloodlord Rising adds ideological resistance. As your power grows, so does opposition. An entity known as The Inquisition actively hunts you, turning exploration into a constant push-and-pull between expansion and retaliation. Both games reward curiosity, but Bloodlord Rising frames exploration as an act of conquest rather than survival alone.

Castle Building as Identity, Power, and Narrative

One of the most compelling ways Bloodlord Rising distinguishes itself from Valheim is how it treats base-building. In Valheim, constructing longhouses and villages provides safety, storage, and crafting progression—a necessary refuge from the wilds. It’s functional, flexible, and deeply satisfying. In Bloodlord Rising, your castle is something more intimate. It isn’t just a base. It’s the physical manifestation of your authority over your tenants.

As a game with a customizable home base, Bloodlord Rising gives “home” a more morbid touch. At the heart of your stronghold is the Castle Core, a living engine fueled by blood. Feeding it unlocks new regions, powers, and systems, tying territorial expansion directly to vampiric hunger. Castle design goes beyond utility, encouraging players to shape towering halls, secret chambers, and gothic spires that reflect how they choose to rule.

This design philosophy extends into the game’s social systems. Villager NPCs aren’t just avatars you trade with or walk by. They are potential prey, servants, or thralls. Loyal followers can be assigned to crafting, hunting, building, or defense, transforming your castle into a living ecosystem. Progression becomes less about surviving the world and more about bending it to your will. But not only that, you need to be careful about the kind of vampire lord you will become to strike the perfect balance.

Combined with the game’s branching skill trees and multiple vampiric forms, Bloodlord Rising positions player choice as both mechanical and narrative. Power has a cost, and legacy is something you actively shape.

Valheim Showed What Survival Could Be. Vampires: Bloodlord Rising Asks Who You Become

Valheim remains a landmark survival game because it understands restraint. Its systems are deep but readable, its world harsh but fair. Bloodlord Rising doesn’t try to replace that formula. Instead, it builds on it by adding intention, character, and moral weight.

By blending Valheim’s open-ended exploration and cooperative survival gameplay with a story-driven vampire fantasy, Bloodlord Rising offers something familiar yet distinct. It’s a game about dominance as much as endurance, about building not just shelter, but identity.

For players who love Valheim’s sense of discovery and crave a darker, more narrative-forward experience, Bloodlord Rising may be one of the most intriguing survival games to keep an eye out for.