Poncle's new Vampire Survivors deckbuilding spin-off, Vampire Crawlers, is already tearing it up on Steam, and it looks like yet another banger 2026 roguelike to add to the pile.
Since releasing two days ago on Steam, Vampire Crawlers (or its Christian name "Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors") has received over 4,000 reviews on its Steam store page, with 98% of them being positive, thus netting the game an "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating. And frankly, it seems like perfect timing, given that 2026's other favorite deckbuilder, Slay The Spire 2, plummeted to a 66% positive lifetime Steam review score after first major update earlier this week.
According to SteamDB, the game has also amassed a concurrent player peak of 40,802 on Steam since its release, which is not a bad start at all considering its big brother Vampire Survivors peaked at 77,061 in 2022.
Looking at the Steam reviews, players seem to be agreed that it's just as engrossing as its predecessor, with one of the top reviews saying: "This is not a game. This is a time travel machine that warps you forward 20 hours in the future despite playing only one session. Be prepared to bring along a H.G. Wells novel and an Italian phrasebook." Another pits it against its contemporaries, saying: "Dare I say it's better than Vampire Survivors? Dare I say 2 hours of this is more fun than 20 hours of Slay the Spire 2? Dare I say it's worth triple the asking price?"
So from the sounds of things, it's maybe not advisable to pick up Vampire Crawlers just yet if you want to get literally anything else done. Personally I'm waiting until I finish Pragmata to sink my teeth in… get it?
