The latest Vampire Survivors-inspired game has deep RPG progression - Should you play Crimson Dawn?
For almost a year now, Vampire Survivors has been one of the biggest sensations on Steam, so it’s no surprise that we’re in the midst of a flood of imitators and would-be successors. Heck, I put together a whole list of them for mobile devices last month. The latest game to join this rampaging horde of, well, horde games is Crimson Dawn, but it has a few special elements to help set it apart from the pack.
THE STORY
As with Vampire Survivors (and most other games in this burgeoning genre), don’t expect much of a story. Players take on the role of a traditional fantasy-style warrior, rogue, or thief archetype, with the ability to unlock others and swap between them as you progress. Then, working out of a hub city, you head out into the wastelands to wipe out as many monsters as humanly possible. That’s it!
PLATFORMS
Crimson Dawn is out now in early access via Steam. I tested it on PC proper and on Steam Deck, where it required a little bit of tweaking to run properly. No word on if proper Steam Deck support (as well as other quality-of-life features, like Steam Cloud) are on the way, but here’s hoping.
TIME PLAYED
I’ve played approximately five hours of Crimson Dawn. In terms of content, I have finished four of the five challenges currently available for the Wasteland map and have made it around three-fourths through upgrading all of the warrior character’s abilities and weapons.
WHAT’S AWESOME
• Progression. Vampire Survivors and most of its clones feature some form of long-term progression between runs, but Crimson Dawn sports one of the most full-featured and fleshed-out systems for character growth of any of them that I’ve played. I needed to collect multiple resources during my runs, with each resource being fed toward a different progression path. I’m hoping these will only be built out from here, and each new character that’s added should come with its own satisfying grind.
• The sense of power. Any game that wants to compete with Vampire Survivors needs to do a good job of making players feel bad-ass. On this note, Crimson Dawn delivers in spades. Even if most of my runs inevitably ended in getting ripped to shreds by endless waves of monsters, I still felt unstoppable right up until that point, tossing out axes, hammers, fireballs, and tornadoes without a care. And the more I upgraded my character and weapons, the better it felt.
• Choosing your own difficulty. Crimson Dawn makes use of a unique system where the player can choose between multiple levels of objectives before each run, but they must be completed in order. Whichever objective you choose as your final goal, you must make it to that to optimize your rewards. This systems ensures that players can feel good about improving their ability to make progress as they build up to each new objective, and completing each objective also provides new unlocks at the hub.
WHAT SUCKS
• The graphics. Like the game it takes inspiration from, Crimson Dawn uses simple pixel art visuals. But where Vampire Survivors has a style that’s reminiscent of classic NES-era Castlevania games, Crimson Dawn just looks kind of...generic. The game showcases a wide variety of monster types, at least, but the models and animation for both the enemies and the heroes leave a lot to be desired.
• Balance issues. As an early access game, it’s hard to ignore just how rough around the edges Crimson Dawn is currently. Most notably, the final objective for the Wasteland map feels basically impossible without maxing out every upgrade possible...which makes the upgrades you unlock for completing it feel very superfluous!
• Lack of content. This is another early access issue to be sure, but once again I must note that in five hours, I’ve done almost everything there is to do in Crimson Dawn right now. Compare that to thirty-plus hours of Vampire Survivors and still feeling like I’ve barely scratched the surface. I’m sure more content will be added aggressively, but right now there’s just a single desert map that gets old fast and not enough variety in hero choices.
SHOULD YOU PLAY IT?
Yes, but you might be better off waiting until it exits early access, or at least until it’s much further along. Crimson Dawn has some really great ideas that build on the base of Vampire Survivors in engaging ways. But it’s also still early, and it shows. If you jump in now, you’ll be able to enjoy it as it progresses and as new content is added, but you also run the risk of burning yourself out on the game before it has become the best version of itself. Choose accordingly.
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