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You don't need to be a music fan to have a vampire weekend this week, as toothy survival game V Rising is free on Steam for the next few days. Developer Stunlock Studios has announced that the game will be freely available until Monday, with a deep discount on the full version if you find yourself thirsting for more by the end of it.
If you're unfamiliar with V Rising, it's one of the better "survival game, but" experiences to have released in the last few years. It takes the familiar loop of exploring, resource gathering, base-building and so forth, but puts you in the role of a vampire looking to restore their former glory after centuries of slumber.
It's a combination that led Lewis Parker to give the game a score of 89% in his V Rising Review. "It's a familiar formula—a little bit Valheim-with-vampires—but it stands out thanks to a progression system that's wonderfully well-balanced and rewarding," he wrote in 2024. "Boss fights feel tough but fair, and each unique enough to make every new encounter fresh and exciting. That's pretty impressive considering there are 57 of them out there to hunt down."
The free weekend coincides with the release of a new patch, which fixes a few bugs and adjusts the balance of V Rising's PvP component. While Stunlock is confident that the game is "pretty solid" at this point, it wanted to address the "lack of variety" in PvP, and has made a few tweaks to discourage players from over-relying on certain tactics.
V Rising is free to download now. If you find its dark charms irresistible, the full game is on a 55% discount, bringing the price down to $19 (£16). And if you really like it, its six DLC packs are 20% off too. Those discounts end May 21. All told, it should keep you busy until Stunlock releases its next game, which is in active development and will continue "the odyssey of the Vampire."
