Vampire Crawlers Brings Survivor's Chaos to Deckbuilding Dungeon Crawling

Vampire Crawlers was officially unveiled during the November 2025 Xbox Partner Preview. Continue reading for full details on the game and its announcement.

Vampire Survivors Spin-Off, Vampire Crawlers, is a First-Person Deckbuilder

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### Sink Your Teeth Into Vampire Crawlers in 2026 The creators of the cult classic Vampire Survivors, Italian studio Poncle, have officially announced Vampire Crawlers, a spin-off of the original "reverse bullet hell" title, during the November 2025 Xbox Partner Preview. The game is scheduled for release in 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2.

While it shares the Vampire Survivors name and universe, Poncle’s CEO Luca Galante has made it clear that this is not the next mainline sequel. Instead, he describes it as "just a spin-off of Vampire Survivors – hopefully the first in a series of spin-offs!" According to Galante, the goal is to leverage the core pillars that defined Survivors: "accessibility, immediacy, affordability, replayability, and sparkly stuff. Tons of sparkly stuff!"

In gameplay terms, players will navigate dungeons from a first-person perspective, constructing decks of attack and utility cards while defeating endless waves of monsters. Galante describes the experience as flexible, allowing you to play "slowly or as fast as you prefer." This means players can go "turbo" by playing cards rapidly or take their time for tactical decisions; the game engine supports both approaches.

The title will feature a "mana combo" system. Players are encouraged to chain cards in ascending mana values to trigger powerful effects with each step. Successfully following the sequence increases the payoff of the next card, making the gameplay loop centered around building and executing these combos.

Poncle started developing Vampire Crawlers shortly after the massive success of Vampire Survivors. After experimenting with several prototype concepts, they settled on its current design. "It is something that has effectively been in the works for almost 4 years," Galante stated.

Regarding its connection to the original series, fans won't feel disconnected. Familiar weapons and the irreverent humor of Vampire Survivors remain present. However, there is a notable shift in presentation: this title is now a first-person dungeon crawler rather than a 2D auto-shooter.

Unlike Vampire Survivors, which launched in Early Access and evolved over time, Vampire Crawlers will release as a complete game. Galante confirmed that "we actually have a lot of ideas to expand the game even further, so we’ll keep supporting the game for several months after launch [...]. We’ll leave it to community to tell us if they want even more, and what they actually want from it going forward."

Vampire Crawlers is set for release in 2026, with "Xbox Game Pass Premium or Ultimate" subscribers gaining access on day one at no extra cost. Additionally, Galante teased that fans eager for more of the original series should stay tuned: "with regards to a sequel to Vampire Survivors, we’re working on something, but we’re not talking about that just yet."