Vampire Survivors’ First Post-Release Patch Adds A Death Bridge

Vampire Survivors, 2022’s break-out game—nay—genre, released its complete 1.0 edition just over a month ago, near the end of October. But if you were worried that meant developer poncle was done, put your worry back in its worry-case, close the lid, clip the clasps, and update your edition to the freshly released 1.10 version. Along with a few smaller details, the patch called The Tiny One adds a fascinating new Challenge Stage, and it’s a very narrow bridge.

The Tiny Bridge Stage is unlocked by having reached level 80 in Inverse Gallo Tower, and once opened, it provides the most ridiculous challenge: A single lane, in which you have to do some very specific ability tweaking to stand a chance of survival.

Capturing that moment in the regular game when you realize you’re hopelessly trapped, and then scrambling to do anything at all to somehow survive it, the entire concept sounds ghastly. And thus, fantastic.

Also added in this post-release update is Seal Power Up. According to the update information:

When Sealing a weapon, it will be automatically added to the list of banished weapons at the start of a run. When Sealing an item, the item will not be removed from the loot table, but will turn into a Gold Coin instead, which means this does not affect standard drop rates.

It comes with 10 ranks, a base price of 10,000, and is gained by “banishing 1o or more items in a single run.” Goodness me, Vampire Survivor got more complicated while I was looking out this window.

There are also two new achievements, for which poncle nervously apologizes. “Sorry for the extra achievements ruining your completion rate,” he says in his notes. “Most players seem to be in favor of having them so I took the opportunity to add more. The best I could come up with to make them feel less of a “must have” is to tag them as EXTRA achievements.”

And there’s a new secret too. Shhhhhh.

Vampire Survivor is very firmly in Kotaku’s favorite games of 2022 (and yes, you, we know it came out in December 2021, but no one noticed for a few weeks), and it’s going to be riding high in a lot of GOTY lists across the internet. Right now you can get it on Steam for just $4.24, or find it included in Game Pass for Xbox. Although be prepared to see nothing but blue crystals when you close your eyes for the next few weeks.