Vampire Crawlers is already my most-played Switch game of 2026

Back in late 2021, a friend of mine told me about this cheap game that was blowing up on Steam called Vampire Survivors. He called it a one-handed roguelike, and I didn't pay much attention to it back then. I got my Steam Deck a few months after it launched, and I started seeing a lot of discussion around Vampire Survivors being perfect for handheld play. I decided to finally give it a go and see what it was all about. I recall putting in nearly three hours into my first two sessions with it, and I've since regularly played it and every single DLC across literally every platform. It eventually became one of my most-played games not only on Steam Deck but also on Xbox and mobile. 

I enjoyed every single DLC pack, including the Among Us collaboration, despite not playing the latter much. I always wondered what poncle would do next, barring just adding more to an already amazing package, but I didn't expect a dungeon crawler deck-builder hybrid spin-off in the Vampire Survivors universe. Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors (henceforth Vampire Crawlers) from poncle releases tomorrow, and it is already my most-played Switch game of 2026. Having now put in over 25 hours into it across Switch and Switch 2, I'm constantly surprised and impressed by how well the developers have adapted mechanics from Vampire Survivors into a deck-building dungeon crawler setting.

Vampire Crawlers has layers upon layers of progression systems that slowly unlock over the course of multiple runs. A run in Vampire Crawlers has you selecting a character (or more than one, as you unlock later on), selecting a location from the world map, and then basically trying to clear said location. Each floor has enemies, points of interest, chests, and items scattered across. You soon unlock the ability to have points of interest marked on the map right from the get-go. This is good, so you can play out your path when you start a new floor. 

Movement takes place in first-person with a battle beginning when you run into an enemy or a boss on the map. This is when Vampire Crawlers moves into its deck-building turn-based battles. I immediately appreciated how well the developers translated over many abilities and passives from Vampire Survivors into different kinds of cards here. Your aim is to defeat enemies, but you can't just brute force your way through encounters beyond the first few floors.

Combat is turn-based with different rows of enemies. Each card costs mana to play, and your mana pool is refreshed for the next turn. The goal here is to chain combos by playing cards in ascending order of their mana cost. Vampire Crawlers also has "Wild" cards that you can use to chain more combos or reset things without losing your combo count. As you defeat enemies, you level up and can select a new card to add to your deck for that run. You also earn money, which you can use to unlock more characters or permanent power-ups and even card upgrades. 

I initially expected Vampire Crawlers to just be a casual take on Vampire Survivors' mechanics, but I'm blown away by just the variety of builds available to players after a few hours of playing. I also appreciate how Vampire Crawlers rewards you for trying new builds, with everything you do counting towards unlocks in some way. Speaking of unlocks, I'm not sure if there are a ton of secrets (I assume there are), but even with just what I see listed in the unlocks menu, Vampire Crawlers has a ton to work towards.

Each location in-game can range from a single bridge to multiple floors in a factory or even more in a tower. I've not seen everything Vampire Crawlers has to offer, but after over two dozen hours with it, I can safely say that while it does start a bit slow for the opening hour when it comes to variety, it regularly throws unlocks at the player, encouraging new combos and use of other characters.

Each character or crawler has their own set of cards and mechanics. These can range from healing to even buffing you in some ways as you trigger their passives by playing certain card types. There are also run-specific modifiers for each card called Gems that help you customize your build even more. Initially, you only have access to basic damage increase gems, but you slowly unlock more that add new flavor text like returning a card to your hand when you play it, or even changing the mana cost of a specific card.

Out of the progression systems in Vampire Crawlers so far, the one I've not spent a ton of time with is the Blacksmith. This is where you can permanently upgrade your cards to feature more gem slots. This feels like something I would need to do towards the end or post-game, and I will revisit it then. Right now, I'm still working my way to reaching 75% completion in the unlock menu and completing Gallo Tower. 

I actually started a new save on another user profile to see how I felt revisiting the opening hours after having spent a lot more time with it, and I didn't realize how much I got used to having access to arcanas, my permanent power-ups, and the two crawlers I use on most runs. I also realized that brute force does help out initially, but knowing how to chain combos lets me melt the early locations in the new profile very quickly.

Every floor in Vampire Crawlers has a boss, and they act like those elites with a blue border around them in the original Vampire Survivors. They have special abilities and a lot of health. They can even curse your deck in a way with black-colored cards that act as dummy cards, change mana, or other mechanics later on in-game. Speaking of each floor, it is great seeing the enemies and bosses you would encounter in the same maps of the original game, appear here as groups of enemies.

Visually, Vampire Crawlers almost perfectly translates the aesthetic of the original game into a 3D environment. It still uses animated 2D sprites and similar visual effects, but the locations feel massive in Vampire Crawlers compared to how understandably flat they feel in Vampire Survivors. Vampire Crawlers does use some HD-2D-like tricks because it has a combination of 2D pixel art with modern rendering for lighting and post-processing. My only complaint is that some of the animations, like opening a chest or adding a gem to a card, have very bright flashing lights. I saw no way to disable these. They feel out of place compared to the rest of the consistently strong and striking art direction.

Audio direction is mostly great in Vampire Crawlers with new voice lines for all the characters, new sound effects, but most importantly, arrangements of the music from the original that I love. I also adore the dynamic music transitions from the normal exploration versions for each location to combat variations. This happens in real-time, and it is an excellent touch.

I have access to Vampire Crawlers' Nintendo Switch 1 version right now, and I've played it on both my Switch OLED and Switch 2 through backward compatibility. On the latter, using handheld boost mode, it is a great experience, but I can tell some effects are downgraded compared to the demo on Steam Deck. Barring that, the performance has been fine. I hope the Switch 2 native release offers a higher frame rate target, though. When I tested the game on Switch OLED, I noticed the performance degraded quite a bit in the mid-game areas during combos. The load times were also very long compared to how snappy everything is on Switch 2 via backward compatibility. I'll save more of my thoughts on the technical state and handheld performance for when I do my full comparison in the near future. 

In a lot of ways, Vampire Crawlers feels oddly nostalgic. I didn't realize how much I missed the skills, characters, and music in Vampire Survivors even after a year away from it. Vampire Crawlers managed to blend in the best of multiple genres and games I love, to deliver one of my favorite and most-played games of 2026 so far, and I haven't even unlocked everything yet.