V Rising Interview – New Blood Types Planned For Update 1.0 & More

Jeremy: Thanks a lot! Being our first-ever console release, we’re currently just focused on doing this one as well as possible and giving our players the best experience we can on the PS5 before looking into other options.

Jeremy: I wouldn’t exactly label it a visual overhaul, but there have definitely been some noticeable improvements in the visuals department. We’ve been looking forward to implementing the changes to our lighting because they let us add different levels of detail in places we weren’t able to do before.

It lets us better differentiate indoor locations from outdoor locations and even adds differences between indoor locations in different regions! All a bit technical, but we’re passionate about it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t include ray tracing.

Jeremy: It would be interesting to take the lessons we’ve learned developing V Rising and be able to build the next installment from the ground up with those lessons in mind. As a studio, we’re always thinking about how we could do things better.

However, we haven’t even gotten to the full release! It’s probably good not to get too far ahead of ourselves, and it’s extremely important for us as an Early Access title to deliver on our promises and give players the full game they deserve for investing so much time and faith into us.

Jeremy: In terms of ongoing monetization, our only additional paid content, as of now, is strictly cosmetic DLCs, though this may shift in the future.

While we have one more update after 1.0 in mind and more improvements to the game we want to do, we also strive not to plan too far ahead. The success of each update helps dictate our direction, and it’s dangerous to get too tied down to one way of thinking.

Jeremy: This is something we’ve been asked about a lot, and I’m actually a bit surprised to see that it’s pretty controversial. Some people want to be able to play with their friends; others are worried about the disparity between players on controllers versus those who are on keyboard and mouse.

We won’t be offering crossplay for a number of… frankly pretty boring technical reasons, but it’s been a pretty fascinating experience keeping up with the debate in the active community.

Jeremy: Just keeping up with opening servers on V Rising’s release was a pretty harrowing experience! We had our engineers quite literally opening servers as fast as they possibly could just to keep up with demand.

Now that we’ve weathered those storms, we’re as confident as we can be going into 1.0 launch! And if there are problems, we’re ready to tackle them.

Jeremy: Not at this time, sorry! We’ve still got a lot of things to announce for the 1.0 update, and I’d like to keep us focused on the present. It’s going to be a very exciting year as is, and we’d hate to ruin the surprises we have in store for you!

Jeremy: We’re always pushing ourselves to deliver as much as we can, and there are so many amazing things and ideas about what V Rising can be that it can be very challenging to leave features and concepts on the cutting room floor.

I think that’s the most difficult part of every patch cycle for us. I’m always blown away with what our team manages to get done in the amount of time we have, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting when you have to leave one of your favorite ideas behind.

We’re still quite a small team for the kind of complex open-world game we’re creating, so we need to be a little selective about the ideas we choose to bring to life.

Jeremy: Releasing the complete game for sure! It’s been a long but very exciting journey to get to this point. I wish I could get more specific here, and I guess it’s kind of cheating to say, but I’m excited to show more of what we’re working on.

The biggest reveals are coming up just around the corner, and it’s been agonizing to keep it under wraps. Every dev blog is a huge relief for me.

Jeremy: I guess it depends a lot on what you mean when you say balance.

For PvE players on their first run-throughs, to speedrunners, to PvPers, there’s a huge difference between what they consider balanced. It’s my job to understand how everybody feels and all of their perspectives and bring that to the studio without coloring it with my biases.

Currently, in PvP, there are some bloods that outperform others in certain situations, but with the massive shakeup 1.0 is going to bring it’s hard to say if that will still be the case. Thankfully, we’ll be having testing to experiment with that.

Jeremy: We’ll be introducing at least one new blood type in 1.0! After that, I really can’t say. As for a hint…well, let’s just say it’s got teeth.

Jeremy: There are a lot of potential ways to expand on the way blood affects the player, but like I mentioned before, sometimes we have to make some hard cuts for the sake of time.

Jeremy: Every time someone messages me that ours was their game of the year, or that they genuinely had an incredible time, or that V Rising gave them something to play with their kid that led to some amazing, quality time that they were otherwise struggling to find, it really, deeply, affects me.

V Rising is a game that connects a lot of different kinds of players who might otherwise not have a lot of games they can play together, and being something that facilitates that is something that really strikes me.

So when we do succeed at that, I try to really enjoy that moment because I am just… really proud to be a part of this team and a part of this game that has managed to connect with so many people.

Jeremy: Personally? Frostmaw, a giant sasquatch-like monster. The first time I played through V Rising, I did the majority of it as a duo with a long-time friend of mine from back in my Battlerite days (Shoutout to Teldo!), and for me, Frostmaw was the first fight that actually challenged us and forced us to coordinate.

The moments when our screens frosted over and obscured our sight, while this gigantic monster started diving in from just off-screen to hit us like an 18-wheeler truck, were really exciting, and there were a lot of clutch moments where we had to support each other to survive. I think about that a lot, actually.

Jeremy: I tend to switch my build up a lot from boss to boss, but my favorite one is just dumping everything into attack speed abilities so I can go really savage with the axes for short bursts.

Dodging until you nail a perfect attack window to see a massive chunk in an enemy’s health just disappear is really satisfying for me. It’s probably no wonder I tend to play a lot of glass cannon and assassin characters in games.

Jeremy: Tips for beginners! That’s a good question, especially because some of the tips I would normally give are being made kind of moot with some of the conveniences we’re going to be adding.

I would say… don’t worry TOO much about where you place your first castle, save the coins you find for later, and really try to take your time on your first play-through. There’s a lot to do, and there’s no pressure to rush through it.

Also, if you’re interested in playing with or against others, there are a lot of people who are really happy to help you get started! We have a great community! Please come join us on Discord!

Oh, and wishlist us on PS5 and Steam. Thanks!