Where to find Blood Essence in V Rising for the Castle Heart

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We explain how to get Greater, Primal and normal V Rising Blood Essence

V Rising blood essence
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V Rising Blood Essence is what you use to fuel your Castle Heart, a literal lifeblood for your lair that powers the various functions of your gothic fortress. Now, calling it blood essence feels a bit misleading - it's really just blood as normal, what with you being a vampire and all - and as what you're looking for is blood, you can probably guess how it's obtained, at least to some extent. Still, there's more than one type in play, as there's also Greater Essence and Primal Essence to find around the world. I'll explain how to get Blood essence in V Rising below, to send your Castle Heart beating all night long.

How to get Blood Essence in V Rising

To get Blood Essence in V Rising, players should first choose which type they're trying to get.

- Blood Essence

- Greater Blood Essence

- Primal Blood Presence

The different Blood Essence types are used for different things, and obtained in different ways, though each one can be crafted in the Blood Press if you have the relevant recipe to set it up. Click on any of the Blood Essence types above to find out more about how to get them, or just scroll down to go through them in order, or even see how they're used!

Blood Essence

You can find Blood Essence in V Rising by killing almost anything in the game. It does't matter if that's with your bare hands or one of the V Rising best weapons, each kill has a chance of giving you Blood Essence. Simply go out killing through the forests and fields and you'll eventually come across it - you don't even need to fight anything dangerous. Every time you see a little icon appear above a defeated enemy that says "+ (number) Essence", you've got what you need. You can also farm Blood Essence by putting four rats in a Blood Press you've built and squeezing them like oranges. Cruel but efficient. 

Greater Blood Essence

Getting Greater Blood Essence means killing higher level enemies, usually level 20+. Again, there's a relatively small chance of it dropping, but any enemy can drop it, so just cut through tougher foes until you can get what you need.

You can also craft Greater Blood Essence by killing the boss Tristan the Vampire Hunter, a very difficult level 46 boss who roams the centre of Farbane Woods (you can check the V Rising map for that in relation to yourself). Once you slay him, you'll be able to craft Greater Blood Essence at your Blood Press with either 4 Unsullied Hearts or 200 regular Blood Essence.

Primal Blood Essence

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Primal Blood Essence is the most valuable and hard-to-obtain forms. The only way to get it is via a recipe in your Blood Press you can get after killing Jade the Vampire Hunter, a level 62 boss who roams the Dunley Farmlands at random. Find out how to get some V Rising Merciless weapons and gear if you need the advantage in slaying them.

Once killed, she drops the recipe for Primal Blood Essence, which allows you to make the stuff in your Blood Press with either four Exquisite Hearts or 12 Greater Blood Essence. Mathematically then, if you have both recipes, this means there's an exchange rate of 2400 Blood Essence to every Primal Blood Essence.

How to use Blood Essence

V Rising Blood Essence greater primal

(Image credit: Stunlock Studios)

The different types of Blood Essence are used for different purposes, as we'll outline for you below.

  • Blood Essence is used as fuel for your Castle Heart, and the kind you'll use most regularly. Click on the Heart and move Blood Essence into it from the menu, and it'll burn it up like coal to power the different devices in your base. It also prevents Castle Decay, a status that leaves your base vulnerable to destruction and takeover by other players. Keep your Castle Heart constantly fuelled with blood, and you shouldn't have a problem.
  • Greater Blood Essence is simply an upgrade and build material, and can't be used as Castle Heart fuel. Its main function is to be used as a building resource for the Servant Coffins, unlocking NPC servants for you to use as your own personal army of darkness.
  • Primal Blood Essence is used to craft Sanguine weapons, Bloodmoon armor, the blood key talisman and Golden Castle key, depending on what recipes and crafting stations you've unlocked. 

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Joel Franey
Joel Franey
Guides Editor, GamesRadar+

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.

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