Should you choose V Rising PvP or PvE mode?

V Rising PvP or PvE choice — (Image credit: Stunlock Studios)

PvP or PvE servers in V Rising is the first choice you make when beginning a new game, and it's one that'll massively change your experience of the whole process - do you enter a world where you'll be going up against other vampire players, or do you keep things cooperative and work on hunting NPC enemies? Both options have their benefits and their downsides, which we'll lay out in our guide on the choice of PvP or PvE in V Rising below.

Should you choose PvP or PvE in V Rising when starting a new game?

When starting an online game in V Rising and given the choice of PvP and PvE, we definitely recommend choosing PvE if it's your first time playing. PvP can be pretty ruthless in V Rising, based around a certain point where players are encouraged to attack each other's castles, but it's a massive factor that most probably don't need on their plate if they're still getting used to the rules.

Instead, we recommend learning the rules of V Rising through PvE, then starting a PvP world with friends when you all have a handle on how the game works. Of course, collaborating players could all enter PvP together and have an honour-system agreement not to attack each other's castles until a certain point, but in a game as ruthless as this, you may not feel comfortable trusting each other to that degree.

Beyond all that, it's important to remember that what you know about the game in PvE doesn't always translate. Combat against players is fairly different to fighting NPCs, as they tend to be a lot quicker and more unpredictable, so you'll have to develop new systems and strategies from scratch - but that's what makes it interesting!

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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.