Vampire Survivors studio reveals a roguelike deckbuilder spin-off threatening all my free time in 2026: "We're milking this bunch of pixels like there's no tomorrow"

Vampire Survivors sucked up a dangerous amount of my free (and unfree!) time a few years ago, and developer Poncle's now using its Nosferatu-style powers to visit me in my late night fever dreams and threaten to do the same thing again, this time with a deckbuilding spin-off. Help.

Revealed at the Xbox Partner Preview showcase last night, Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors is the exorbitantly long name of the indie dev's new spinoff, which sees the original roguelite's moreish loop, overpowered builds, in-jokes and blinding bullet hell pixels switch to a first-person lens. Vampire Crawlers is more than just a perspective shift, though.

"It's about mowing down hordes of enemies using cards, while you explore dungeons, playing as slowly or as fast as you prefer," studio CEO Luca Galante tells the official Xbox blog. "You can take your time and be tactical, or play cards as fast as you humanly can, because the game is built to always provide accurate logical outcomes, regardless of the visual chaos that your abilities might cause. On top of the deck-building element, there is also a card customization mechanic that can dramatically alter the way you play your cards."

The debut trailer, which you can see below, has Poncle poking fun at itself: "We're milking this bunch of pixels like there's no tomorrow." And, hey, from the developers of 2022's secret best game? I'm not complaining.

Vampire Crawlers coming day one with Xbox Game Pass in 2026 | Xbox Partner Preview 2025 - YouTube

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Of course, the first-person dungeon-crawling that the game is named after is also new, and Galante explains that lots of the "bare-bones choice tree" maps you see in modern roguelikes, even the good ones – Slay the Spire, Cobalt Core – are a bit overused. "It's practical, but I wanted to create something just a bit more involved, to give a little more meaning to exploration," he adds. "The dungeons exist mainly to offer more interesting choices about what to do in between fights and to help in giving the feeling that you are moving through a world where a large variety of things could happen, instead of just navigating menus."

Vampire Crawlers is – ahem – crawling onto PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch, mobile storefronts, Xbox Series X|S and Game Pass sometime in 2026. "As soon as it's ready!"

"On Steam alone, I probably have 3,000 hours": Nobody loves Vampire Survivors more than its creator, who once thought nobody would play it "for more than two hours" and ironically says short games rule.