Vampire Survivors is the gift that keeps on giving, dropping a local multiplayer mode, flashy new engine and a whole bunch of other free stuff on top of a game that is already more than well worth its modest price tag. In the case of the screen-filling slay-’em-up’s next big update, it’s now a Christmas gift that keeps on giving, with a Santa’s sack worth of winter-inspired additions on the way. Oh, and it all arrives tomorrow. That’s nice.
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Vampire Survivors’ 1.7 patch – or the Whiteout update, to give it its slightly more sexy/nineties rock band name – is headlined by a snow-covered new stage of the same name, which is crammed full of ghosts, ghouls and other monsters to plough through with your roster of weapons.
One of those weapons might be the brand new Glass Fandango (an excellent name), a sort of massive blue magical beam that apparently gets stronger as you move, as well as dishing out extra damage to frozen enemies – making it especially lethal when paired with the freezing effect of the Orologion pickup.
Speaking of pickups, there’s also a new relic in the form of the Antidote, which lets you purchase the Defang powerup. Defang effectively nerfs enemies when they spawn, making them unable to deal damage at increasingly regular intervals depending on how much you level-up Defang (it goes up to 15% of the time from a starting value of 3%).
Feeling cute, might release a free update on Thursday
(Announcement: We are releasing a free update this Thursday, it’s called Whiteout, details below) https://t.co/nObwGizORR
— Vampire Survivors 🧛 Whiteout, free patch! 19/10☃️ (@poncle_vampire) October 17, 2023
Whiteout also adds a new character, She-Moon Eeta, who’ll be unlocked once you survive 20 minutes on the Whiteout stage with any character. (Or 10 minutes in Hyper mode.) The floating, frosty lady comes with the power to freeze every enemy for 10 seconds if your health drops too low, which might be a nice way to escape a tricky spot without dying. She also starts with the Glass Fandango, which’ll work nicely with her freezing power.
On the side of the vampires, there’s a new boss to tackle. Whiteout’s trailer shows a big fox with red marks and glowing blue smoke around it that put me in mind of Okami’s Amaterasu. It looks pretty mean, but nothing that a mound of upgrades can’t take care of.
You’ll be able to give all this a go tomorrow, October 19th, when the Whiteout update hits Vampire Survivors. Like its other updates, it’ll be free. There’s plenty more on the way for the certifiably best PC game of 2022, too – developers Poncle have said that they have dozens of characters and weapons in the works for release until at least the end of 2024. That’s a lot of survivin’ to come.
