It’s been a big night for gamers, with the annual Game Awards showcasing everything coming to consoles and PC in the next year. It’s normally not big on Apple-related announcements, but iPhone and iPad gamers did get an announcement treat of their own tied to the show.
Vampire Survivors, the bullet-hell rouge-lite indie smash hit of the year, is now available free on iPhone and iPad. You can grab it here. It’s also available for Android devices, following launches on Xbox and PC over the past year.
It’s being heralded as a ‘Game of the Year’ contender — that’s despite it coming out in late 2021, as most people didn’t get around to actually playing it until this year, such was the modest scale of its initial release. But word of mouth spread fast, and Vampire Survivors became one of the most talked about games of 2022.
What is Vampire Survivors?
Vampire Survivors is a unique shooter, taking elements of shoot-em-ups and challenging rogue-like games and wrapping them in a horror-themed, Castlevania-like aesthetic.
You’ll face a never-ending stream of monsters, and are tasked with staying alive as long as you can. With auto-firing weapons, you only control your characters movement, who you can customise with new levels or skills as you level up. With retro pixel graphics, it should play well on most relatively recent devices, and has been well optimized for mobile, supporting both portrait and landscape orientations of play.
Vampire Survivors’ previous absence from mobile stores allowed many an imitator to try to take its place, so it’s great to see the excellent game come in its true form to mobile devices. An expansion, Legacy of Moonspell, is expected to land on December 15 – here’s hoping that makes its way to iPad and iPhone, too. And if you’re looking for more great games to play over the holiday period, make sure to check out our picks for the best Apple Arcade games.
