The true test of a vampire game isn’t so much in the ways it lets you do the cool things vampires do – it’s in how it portrays the classic vampire weaknesses, forcing you to live a vampire lifestyle. V Rising does a pretty good job of this, with banes from sunlight to garlic represented, while also featuring a striking and memorable art style alongside exciting and tough ARPG combat. Many of the gripes I had in my Early Access review have been addressed without changing the heart-pounding identity of the experience, especially when playing in a customized single-player world.

As a newly-resurrected vampire in a world where humans have mostly chased your kind into the shadows, this mashup of Diablo and the survival crafting genre doesn’t spend a lot of time on up-front storytelling. The descriptions for its varied bosses give some sense of how the world is put together, but there’s not really a main plot to follow until much later. You build a blood altar, you get a list of special enemies you need to kill to unlock new abilities and better technologies, and you’re off on the hunt. This doesn’t bother me too much, and I did enjoy piecing together how little bits of lore were connected, discovering new areas and factions along the way.

In Early Access, I had a hard time with the amount of resource gathering and waiting around for ore to smelt that you had to do. But with 1.0’s extensive game setup customization, I found that I could dial things like resource yields and crafting speed in to the point where there was really no drudgery involved at all. Some high tech recipes still take longer than I’d like to finish, but there is generally always something rewarding I can be doing while I wait, so it’s not that big of a deal.

Designing and detailing your massive vampire castles can be highly entertaining. On a private server, they can be built up to six stories high, with a huge variety of functional and cosmetic items to unlock – from eerie, floating candelabras to a hungry treasure chest that recycles unwanted items into their component materials. You do have to continue feeding your castle blood essence to keep it active, which comes from just about any enemy you kill. This isn’t much of an issue in an offline game since essence will only be consumed when you’re playing, and you can save up hundreds of real-world days’ worth, so you’re unlikely to ever run out. But on a public server, depending on its settings, your castle could eventually crumble or even be captured by enemy players, causing you to lose that spot on the map if you don’t log in at least once or twice a week to top it off. That can start to feel like a chore after a while.

I’m also a little bit disappointed that my castle couldn’t have a basement. Especially when I started imprisoning foolish mortals to use as blood cattle – what? Don’t look at me like that. I longed for the ability to stick them underground in an elaborate dungeon, but had to settle for an above-ground jail.

The other welcome addition since Early Access that cuts back on the downtime of building and crafting is Rift Incursions, which are timed events that pit you against a unique roster of enemies to earn Stygian Shards, which play into a new mid-to-late-game progression system. Among other things, they let you craft more powerful versions of all the base weapons using ruined weapon templates, which can be bought or found in random drops, with modifiers that can vary in strength.

This adds a little bit more of a feeling of personalized loot and progression without being overly random. You’re never going to be splitting hairs between 12 different versions of the same axe, which would have been a bit too much Diablo for me. But there is a reason to keep hitting up rifts if you want the absolute best gear for your build, which is nice.

The fast-paced but deliberate ARPG combat is the star of V Rising, and it’s honestly some of the best in the genre today. The broad array of flashy, fun, and deadly active abilities to unlock allow for some awesome builds. I particularly liked the Blood tree, which focuses on healing yourself throughout battle. I would have appreciated a stamina bar or more ways to get additional combat dashes, because basically everything is cooldown-based, and it can feel really bad in those moments when you don’t have any buttons to push. I prefer more fine-grained resource management and builder-spender combat, myself. But it also encourages you to think carefully about when to deploy your defensive and movement abilities, which keeps bigger fights from feeling too button-mashy.

The more than 50 challenging bosses are really the highlight of V Rising. From zealous human hunters to creepy necromancers, no two feel alike in fighting style or personality, and almost all are very well-designed encounters. The later ones can be cleverly and mercilessly difficult, which is generally a good thing. My main criticism is that some of them feel like they have too many defensive and area denial abilities, to the point that you don’t get enough opportunities to attack them in melee. I can switch to my pistols, sure, but I prefer to slice my food to pieces. Luckily, each one has a fairly unique set of tricks, so it never feels like V Rising is leaning on one thing too much to dial up the challenge.

I really like the art direction overall. It’s a bit stylized and cartoony, but not in a way that detracts from the horror aspects. Whether I’m exploring a misty, haunted forest, slashing my way through a skeleton-infested graveyard, or sneaking into a pastoral human village – bundled head-to-toe in rags, which isn’t suspicious at all – everything is very readable and eye-catching. It’s never a pain to figure out what’s going on in combat, and the environment artists have made great use of color to create a range of moods and vibes. This is only helped by the soundtrack, which does generally fit what I’d call stereotypical vampire music – all mournful strings and melodramatic piano melodies – but it’s executed well.

The survival mechanics really sell the vampire fantasy, too. There is a full day/night cycle, and standing in the sun will start to drain your health quickly after a short grace period. Moving about by day is still fully possible if you’re careful, thanks to the fact that anything that casts a shadow in the environment can serve as a safe haven, including passing clouds. That’s a really cool touch. Shadows even shift throughout the day, so noon is a more dangerous time to be outside than dawn or dusk.

Keeping your blood supply topped up is also appropriately essential, as it’s your main way of healing outside of combat. What’s even better is that the blood type of the last enemy you fed on temporarily gives you a character class, which comes with handy bonuses like increased critical chance for rogues or damage resistance for brutes. How much of a bonus is based on the Blood Quality of your victim, which is semi-randomized and encourages you to seek out particularly tasty prey. I enjoyed how this system let me customize my fighting style on the fly and encouraged me to act like a discerning hunter.

There are also rich options for multiplayer, for everything from building a big castle in a private world with a few of your friends, to PvP free-for-alls with capturable castles and siege golems. I personally prefer the former. But even on public servers, I found a lot of the issues with balance in Early Access – like all of the good plots of land being taken, making the whole world feel like more of a Gothic suburb – have been alleviated quite a bit. The official servers have been very stable during the beta as well. I never felt like I lost a duel because of weird ping or anything like that.

Nintendo still believes the Switch has plenty of life left even amid steeply declining sales and the console nearing its eight-year anniversary.

The Switch, which launched in March 2017, sold 15.7 million units during the last financial year ending March 31, 2024, a decline of 12.6% on the previous year. However, Nintendo enjoyed 123 million ‘annual playing users’ during the period, the highest figure ever since Switch launched.

For the current financial year ending March 2025, Nintendo forecast 13.5 million Switch sales, which would be a 14% decline on the previous year. The Switch is now up to 141.32 million units sold as of March 31, 2024. Add another 13.5 million on top and you get 154.82 million. If the Switch continues to sell well even after its successor launches, reportedly spring 2025, it may end up as the best-selling console of all-time, ahead of the PS2’s eye-watering 160 million sold.

On this financial year, it’s worth digging into how Nintendo will achieve its aggressive 13.5 million sales figure. In its fiscal report, the company offered a vague statement, similar to those it has issued in the past: “Nintendo Switch has entered its eighth year since launch, and while it will be challenging to sustain the same sales momentum as before, we will work to maintain high user engagement with the hardware and invigorate the platform so that more consumers continue to play Nintendo Switch for longer.”

Nintendo has just announced a Nintendo Direct for June, during which fans will get a better idea of the games to expect during the console’s twilight years. But to achieve such a high number of sales during a console’s eighth year, Nintendo may have significant unannounced games up its sleeve, or may be preparing a long-awaited price cut.

Meanwhile, Nintendo announced updates sales figures for many of its Switch games. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is now up to 20.61 million sold, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is on 13.44 million, the eternally popular Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold another 8.18 million during the year, and Nintendo Switch Sports shifted another 3.51 million units. Pikmin 4 has sold 3.48 million, and Super Mario RPG has sold 3.31 million. Princess Peach: Showtime!, which launched in March, hit 1.22 million, and Mario vs. Donkey Kong, which released in February, is on 1.12 million sold.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Alan Wake and Control developer Remedy Entertainment has cancelled its mysterious multiplayer project Kestrel to focus on already established franchises.

Kestrel was “a premium game with a strong cooperative multiplayer component” in development with Chinese publisher Tencent. Remedy said its other projects — which include remakes of Max Payne 1 and 2, Control 2, and a multiplayer spin-off from Control called Condor — are progressing well and the resources going into Kestrel could therefore be better spent on those.

“Codename Kestrel showed early promise but the project was still in its early concept stage,” said Remedy CEO Tero Virtala. “Our other projects have advanced well and are moving to the next stages of development, and increasing focus on them provides us with benefits.

“We can reallocate talented Kestrel developers to these other game projects, and many of our support functions get additional focus on their operations. This is yet another means to ensure that our game projects continue advancing well. I want to thank our Kestrel development team. Though we decided to discontinue the project for wider Remedy benefits, our team has done good work and provided us with valuable learnings.”

Kestrel had previously shown signs of development trouble as Remedy announced a “reboot” in November 2023, changing it from a free-to-play game to a full, premium project. Kestrel would “lean more into Remedy’s core strengths and be built on many of the features, assets, and themes already designed for Vanguard,” Remedy said at the time.

Condor will now be the only multiplayer game in development at the studio, with this one set to be a four-player, cooperative, “player versus environment” game. Little else has been said about the project, but it will seemingly get a development boost from the employees leaving the cancelled Kestrel behind.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Nintendo has said it will finally announce its Switch successor console “within this fiscal year”, so at some point before March 31, 2025.

In a statement published to X / Twitter, Shuntaro Furukawa, President of Nintendo, confirmed the new console as Nintendo published its financial report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024. Furukawa also confirmed a Nintendo Direct for this June, but said there will be no mention of the Switch successor during that presentation. Instead, it will focus on Switch games for the latter half of 2024.

The wording suggests fans will have to wait until at least July for a first glimpse at Nintendo’s next-gen console, dubbed Switch 2 by many. Here’s Furukawa’s statement in full:

“This is Furukawa, President of Nintendo. We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year. It will have been over nine years since we announced the existence of Nintendo Switch back in March 2015. We will be holding a Nintendo Direct this June regarding the Nintendo Switch software lineup for the latter half of 2024, but please be aware that there will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during that presentation.”

In February, reports indicated the Switch 2 was delayed until the early months of 2025. As reported by Bloomberg, VGC, and Eurogamer, sources claimed Nintendo had told publishers the Switch 2 was originally planned to be released at the end of 2024 but was now expected to slip to “March 2025 at the earliest.”

Recent alleged details on the power of the Switch 2 weren’t the first rumors to spread about Nintendo’s new console. Other allegedly leaked details have suggested that the device will feature magnetic versions of the Joy-Cons and maybe even let players use their old controllers, too. If these recent rumors are to be believed, you’ll also be able to enjoy your physical and digital games on the Switch 2.

For more on what may eventually become the Switch 2, you can read everything else we know about the company’s next console.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.