This is the best Vampire Survivors-style game I’ve ever played

Vampire Survivors finally has some real competition in Fiveamp’s Nimrods: GunCraft Survivor.

Poncle’s Vampire Survivors game was a revelation when it launched a few years ago, redefining the shoot ’em up and bullet hell genres. It made attacks automatic, with its focus on accruing XP and powering up until you’re the attack-spewing entity that enemies should be afraid of. It popularized the “bullet heaven” shoot ’em up subgenre, which has become immensely popular in the indie scene.

Just take a quick look at Steam’s Bullet Heaven Fest lineup, and you’ll see how many Vampire Survivors-likes there are. Some are spinoffs of preexisting games like Temtem, Achilles: Legends Untold, or Despot’s Game. I’ve played quite a few of these, but none have been able to recapture the magic of Vampire Survivors; they all feel too derivative of a game that already nailed the formula and has years’ worth of DLC and additional content. That is until Nimrods came along with its ingenious idea to have players build up an uber-powerful gun throughout a run.

I’m a survivor

The narrative isn’t that important to a game like Nimrods; all you need to know is that you’re fighting off hordes of aliens while building and testing guns for an unnamed weapons manufacturer. On a core level, Nimrods functions as I’d expect a game inspired by Vampire Survivors to. I choose a character with a special ability and gun to start with and then begin a run. I move around and automatically shoot enemies, collecting the XP they drop to level up. That’s where Nimrods gets a lot more interesting.

Rather than leveling up my character, I’m leveling up my gun. Each new attachment and augment offers some unique bonuses. These start simple, like small boosts to ammo count and fire rate, but later ones can have massive gameplay ripples, like firing my shotgun’s bullets in a double helix shape or shooting flames from my pistol. After several minutes of play and level-ups, I created some pretty amazing weapons, each of which technically had a unique look based on my chosen upgrades. Finding or creating a weapon that feels unique to you is one of the best parts of games like Borderlands 3 or Diablo IV. Nimrods applies that feeling to the Vampire Survivors formula.

Fiveamp

Inevitably, I die, but unlike Vampire Survivors builds, my progress isn’t lost forever. Crafted guns show up on my spaceship after the fact, and I can choose to give one to a drone. On subsequent runs, a drone will hold and automatically fire this gun alongside me, creating even more bullet-driven chaos. Nimrods can also be played more like a twin-stick shooter if you want, as I could aim where I shot with the right stick. All of these flourishes give Nimrods a distinct identity I’ve yet to find in any other games inspired by Vampires Survivors.

While Nimrods might seem creatively derivative at first glance, it’s one of the most inspired games I’ve played in the bullet heaven space since Vampire Survivors. That makes sense, as Fiveamp game designer Talonos tells Digital Trends he has had the idea for a game where players build their own gun ever since they were a teenager. He even referenced old notes about this concept for inspiration during Nimrods‘ development.

“I’d been imagining a roguelite where you build your own gun ever since I was a teenager, trying to make games in Visual Basic. My concept was a system where any gun part could stack with any gun part, leading to thousands of insane combinations,” Talonos tells Digital Trends. “When I played my first bullet heaven, I immediately felt like I’d found a home for this guncrafting system I’d been envisioning for years, and later pitched the idea to the rest of the team.”

Fiveamp

Nimrods is a welcome reminder that when developers are trying to fast-follow or create something that’s inspired by a preexisting work, they still need a personal, original-feeling spark to make something special. As an early access title, Nimrods obviously pales in comparison to Vampire Survivors in regard to content density, but I see myself coming back to Nimrods over Vampire Survivors in the future because of its unique spin on the formula. For a game I was not aware of just a couple weeks ago, I expect Nimrods to start taking over all my free time, just like Vampires Survivors did when it launched.

Nimrods: GunCraft Survivor enters early access on Steam on October 28. Fiveamp plans to keep the game in early access for “around a year.”