Warhammer Survivors Isn’t Good Enough to Be a Vampire Survivors Replacement

Vampire Survivors and its plethora of clones are always more fun in hour ten than hour one. The passive nature of the auto-attack gameplay means this style of experience lives or dies by how fun and visually over-the-top the action can get once you upgrade your character, gain access to more weapons, and manage to survive long enough to level up or evolve your weapons.

I did eventually hit that point of satisfaction with Warhammer Survivors, which was developed by Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 studio Auroch Digital with help from Vampire Survivors creator Poncle. When I got to the point where I could rip and tear through enemies with a Typhoon Crossbow as followers with upgraded weapons of their own fired at enemies around it, the game offered spectacle worthy of the Warhammer and Survivors names. But getting there doesn’t feel quite as good as its inspiration.

Warhammer Survivors doesn’t contain any sort of important lore to speak of; it’s more of a hodgepodge of various recognizable Warhammer characters (like Boltgun’s Malum Caedo) fighting against waves of unrelenting creatures from both eras of the franchise. Warhammer Survivors is essentially two games in one, with one half based on the sci-fi Warhammer 40,000 and the other on the more fantasy-like Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.

Each half of Warhammer Survivors has unique characters, weapons, enhancements, and objectives to unlock, but the core gameplay loop of each is the same. As a player, all you have to do is walk around levels as your character automatically attacks. Enemies drop experience when they die most of the time, and you collect that to level up and upgrade all of the weapons that you have equipped. Considering Poncle was directly involved with this game, it’s not surprising that Warhammer Survivors does not do much to hide its inspiration or reinvent the formula.

The most unique gimmick here is a follower feature, which solves for the fact that Warhammer Survivors’ characters are connected to factions that only let them use specific weapons. Rather than one character wielding every weapon and upgrading at once, sometimes you can save or summon another character that uses a different weapon to fight alongside you. This feels fitting for the large-scale battles Warhammer is known for. Yet in practice, all it really does is add an additional layer to a choice you were already going to make regardless.

Image: Auroch Digital

It shouldn’t be too surprising that what you’re getting with this game is Vampire Survivors with a Warhammer coat of paint, even if it does go a bit deeper than Vampire Survivors’ typical crossover DLC. Vampire Survivors is a great game, and Warhammer Survivors is a good one too. That said, I won’t herald Warhammer Survivors as some amazing replacement for that indie classic, because there are some things it doesn’t do quite as well as the original.

Survivors games are all about snowballing power, building up to a chaotic storm of attacks. In Vampire Survivors, almost every weapon has auto aim and will hit something in range when used. But that’s not the case for certain early-game weapons in Warhammer Survivors that shoot the direction the player is facing, like the Boltgun. Those simply don’t mesh well with the auto-attacking gameplay.

The lack of auto-aim on these weapons meant that, as I moved to avoid enemies, I would shoot away from the horde, toward nothing. Eventually, I was able to unlock better weapons that would actually hit the enemies approaching me, but the fact that the earliest weapons are some of the worst means it takes a bit too long to find the fun.

Image: Auroch Digital

By hour 10 with Vampire Survivors, I had found the characters and weapons I enjoyed using the most. They tended to be the ones that would allow me to exponentially increase in power most smoothly and actually felt like I could survive 20+ minutes and 40+ levels into a single run. From that point onwards, Warhammer Survivors is as good as Vampire Survivorsor any other game of its ilk. It’s just not quite as instantly captivating and rewarding.

Diehard Warhammer fans who haven’t played Vampire Survivors or any of the games it inspired will have a fantastic time with this, but there’s not much reason to abandon the original Vampire Survivors for this official clone. Warhammer Survivors certainly won’t usurp its direct inspiration as my go-to game of this style because it forgets to emulate some of what made Vampire Survivors near-perfect. Still, it confidently delivers exactly what the title promises.