Vampire Crawlers Is Out — Here's What Critics Are Saying on Launch Day

It's launch day for one of the most anticipated indie releases of the spring, and the reviews are in. Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors — Poncle's wildly ambitious spin-off from their 2022 phenomenon — is available right now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC, and is free on Xbox Game Pass from day one. The question everyone had: could a game that completely changes genre from its predecessor still deliver the same dopamine loop? The answer, judging by the first wave of critical response, is a confident yes.

The Scores

Vampire Crawlers is currently sitting at 80 on Metacritic and 82 on OpenCritic, with 89% of critics recommending it. Those are genuinely strong numbers — the kind most developers would be thrilled with. The elephant in the room is that Vampire Survivors, the original, scored 86 on Metacritic and 88 on OpenCritic. Crawlers doesn't quite match its predecessor's legendary status, but that was always going to be a near-impossible benchmark. Poncle didn't try to replicate it — they changed direction entirely.

The range of scores is wider than the original, reflecting a game that divides opinion based on what you want from it rather than any fundamental quality issues. At the top end, Loot Level Chill awarded a 10/10, calling it "probably the best roguelike deckbuilder ever made." DualShockers gave it 9/10 and named it "a strong contender for my 2026 Game of the Year." TechRaptor also landed on 9/10, describing it as "a rock-solid marriage between card game and dungeon crawling." GameSpot sits at 8/10. Nintendo Life awarded 8/10. Push Square gave it 8/10 while noting some controller menu navigation issues. At the lower end, a handful of critics found the genre shift too significant or the difficulty curve too steep — but the majority are firmly positive.

What Critics Are Actually Saying

The praise lines up around a few consistent themes. The Turboturn System — Poncle's central innovation, which lets players take turns at whatever pace they choose — is being widely cited as genuinely clever design. The "one more run" pull is intact despite the genre shift. The soundtrack, described by multiple reviewers as "incredible," carries the Vampire Survivors atmosphere into the new format effectively. And the build variety, despite the smaller scale compared to VS, is deep enough to sustain long-term engagement.

"Vampire Survivors' addicting, screen-filling, dopamine rush gameplay lives on in Vampire Crawlers," reads one review, noting that while the perspective is first-person and combat is card-based, "the roguelite itch is scratched just as well as ever."

The criticisms are centred on a steep early-game learning curve, some controller menu navigation friction on console, and — for a vocal minority — a sense that the game retreads too much visual territory from Vampire Survivors rather than introducing fully original art and characters.

The Genre Shift Is the Point

It's worth putting the slightly lower-than-VS scores in context. Vampire Survivors worked because it was radically simple — you moved, enemies came at you, you scaled until the screen was on fire. Crawlers asks more of the player. It's a deckbuilder. It's turn-based. It requires reading cards, building synergies, and understanding dungeon layout. That's a fundamentally different ask, and some players who loved VS for its accessibility will find Crawlers asks more than they want to give.

But the players who embrace the complexity are, by every available account, completely hooked. "Even with everything unlocked and nothing left to work toward, Vampire Crawlers still has its teeth in me," one reviewer wrote, before noting they were already diving in for just one more run.

The Bottom Line for Your Wallet

At $9.99 — or free on Game Pass — the risk profile of this purchase is essentially zero. The critical consensus and the community reaction from demo players both point to a game that consistently delivers what it promises. If you played the demo and loved it, you already know what to do. If you haven't tried it yet and you have Game Pass, download it now and spend 30 minutes with it.

The demo's save data carries over to the full game, so nothing you accomplished in the preview is wasted.

Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors is available now on PS5, Xbox, Switch, and PC for $9.99. Free on Xbox Game Pass.

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