A Deeper Dive into Vampire Survivors’ New Couch Co-op Mode

Hello, Xbox Wire. You might have already seen it, the vampire’s out of the coffin (the equivalent of “the cat’s out of the bag” for those fluent in Vampire Survivors(): On 17 August, our game gets a couch co-op 4-player mode! Free update available! Join your closest friends in the battle of bullet hell!

In today’s post, we wanted to explain in more detail how the co-op mode will work, why we’re adding it to the game, and some new details of what you can expect when the co-op update hits.

Let’s start with what the co-op update will look like. Imagine a scene: a man, a dog and a tree all meet at a dairy factory. The old man is sneezing garlic, death, and smelling like death. The screen is turned into a hell of bullets! It’s not a joke anymore! Vampire Survivors – well, normal for Vampire SurvivorsEnjoy the standards and have fun!

You can add more co-op characters on the character selection screen, before you start a new level. You can invite up to three friends from your local area and they will be able to play through the game with you. Vampire Survivorssaga including characters, weapons and updates. DLCs. Achievements. The whole game is now available in a local cooperative mode that’s fully optional!

Here are some more details on the couch-coop gameplay for those who are familiar with the title.

• A character may only be chosen by one player. Having 4 Poes, O’Soles or Sigmas on screen would simply make the universe implode. Much like in single-player, once you’ve played a stage, you can select new characters.
• In couch-cooperative, leveling up is a little different. Leveling up is done in turn, and the XP bars remain unchanged. When a friend dies, the level is transferred to another player.
• In couch coop, when one of your trusted companions dies they will become a coffin. Over time they will revive, but make sure you keep the coffin clear if you can, who knows the results if enemies swarm it…
• You’ll be able to select weapons as you level up as always, but the amount of weapons you can have depends on how many friends are playing. This means for maximum survival time you’ll have to decide who picks which weapon, but for maximum chaos you could shut your eyes and select anything!
• No couch co-op achievements exist! We wanted to make sure you can unlock achievements in co-op mode playing with friends if you prefer, but you don’t have to. The game can be played in single player just as before.
• It is still a one-screen game, which means you’ll have to agree tactically with your teammates where to next go and what spots are the best for fighting your battles.

Also, there is a brand new article:

• We’re happy to reveal: The Friendship Amulet! The item will appear in the screen for leveling up weapons and it will randomly level up a weapon of each player. They will then have to make a decision whether or not they would like to pick their weapon (either selfishly or strategically) for level-up, rather than give the entire group an opportunity at random.

Lastly, we want to answer the question of why we’re adding the co-op mode to begin with. Answer is surprising simple. We called the game Vampire Survivors but felt a bit awkward that it’s a game for only one Vampire Survivor; with co-op, we can finally honour the ‘s’ at the end of Vampire Survivors!

On a more serious note: co-op was a frequently requested community feature and high up on our list of things to try out, mostly because we think it’s super fun! Our favourite local co-op titles are some of the best games we’ve ever played. The best gaming moments are made when you can play games with friends on the couch. We wanted it to work no matter what challenges arose (which, as a vampire, did).

In turning a single-player experience to a couch co-op one, we had a lot of gameplay questions to answer, so we hope you feel we’ve picked the right conclusions and that you enjoy the new mode! We’re always listening to feedback from the community, so find us on Twitter or Discord and let us know your thoughts. We’ve already heard a lot of players asking for an online mode, but that’s an order of magnitude or two more complicated to make right now. Maybe we’ll look into it when we have more time. Maybe we’re already doing it?

There are still a few things we’ve not spoken about that you can uncover when the co-op update launches on 17th August. But we can already tell you that there might be a few ways to get a little revenge on your friends (it’s called co-op mode, but we are never against some friendly trolling).

Vampire Survivors is available on  Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Windows PC (with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass) today. Couch Co-op is available for free on the 17th of August.

Vampire Survivors

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Vampire Survivors combines minimalistic gameplay with roguelite features. You can’t hide anywhere, you have to try and survive the cursed night, while collecting as much gold for your next victim.