Though initially announced under the radar last May, Stunlock Studios’ new vampire-themed survival RPG V Rising is quickly becoming a massive hit on Steam, with its newest figures reaching over a million players within its first week alone. A quick peek at the statistics website SteamDB confirms V Rising sales have crossed the 7-figure mark after officially launching into Early Access on May 20th. All the more impressive, the game’s concurrent player count quickly peaked at 150,000 and is still circling 100k per day over 7 days past launch.

Set in the foggy woodlands of Vardoran, V Rising starts players out as a vampire, starting from zero (you don’t even have clothes) and feeding their undead legend by drinking human victims, battling beastly enemies, and building a batty bloodsucking empire. Fittingly, V Rising allows players to customize their own vampire castle, acting as protection from the scorching daylight as well as a monument to one’s own gothy flair. Boasting co-op and PvE modes, players can also band up and raid each other’s bases to further establish their undead dominance.

Even as the team spent three years developing V Rising, Stunlock expressed surprise regarding the game’s otherworldly popularity, with community manager Jeremy Fielding saying, “I don’t think anybody expected it to be quite this big,” in a recent IGN interview. “We really started to get a lot of attention when we went into closed beta, when people really got an opportunity to get their hands on the game,” Fielding explained. “I think that’s when they started paying attention, which makes sense.”

“We have a fairly unique game that’s kind of hard to explain – we say dark fantasy vampire survival action RPG – and when you say that there’s a million different things your brain can do with it. I think it doesn’t really process until you see it or feel it.”

Following its monumental sales milestone, Stunlock celebrated on social media, thanking the over 1 million fans who have “risen from their slumber” so far. In the meantime, the studio has begun its long roadmap out of Early Access with the addition of an offline ‘LAN Mode’ to V Rising, allowing players to live their best vampire life without others stepping into their game. Full patch notes for this latest update can be viewed on the game’s official Steam page.

​What do you think? Are you compelled by the massive popularity of V Rising, or do you think it still has a ways to properly fulfill its potential? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to follow Don’t Feed the Gamers on Twitter and Facebook to be informed of the latest gaming and entertainment news 24 hours a day!​

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