Developer Poncle says its newly announced Vampire Crawlers is more of a spinoff than a sequel, but it sounds like Vampire Survivors 2 may actually be in the works, too.
Fans had their eyebrows raised when the studio behind the hit monster-slaying video game announced Vampire Crawlers as its new game during today’s Xbox Partner Preview. While the roguelike deck-builder might seem like a proper Vampire Survivors sequel at first glance, Poncle says in a new interview with Xbox Wire, this isn’t the case.
“This is just a spin-off of Vampire Survivors – hopefully the first in a series of spin-offs!” studio founder and CEO Luca Galante said. “The idea is to take some of the core pillars behind the development of VS and to apply them to existing genres. I’m talking about accessibility, immediacy, affordability, replayability, and sparkly stuff. Tons of sparkly stuff!”
It’s no doubt an idea a wide range of Vampire Survivors fans will gravitate to, especially as Poncle teases what could be more than one spinoff. Alas, the lack of a 2 next to the title means Vampire Crawlers is planned to offer something different from the core experience, but fans hoping for a proper follow-up may not want to count out Vampire Survivors 2 just yet.
“With regards to a sequel to Vampire Survivors, we’re working on something, but we’re not talking about that just yet,” Galante adds.
It’s just one sentence of acknowledgement, but it’s still enough to confirm that Poncle has multiple ideas brewing when it comes to the future Vampire Survivors. Whether that lands a 2 next to the original title’s name or results in something else entirely, we’ll have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, Vampire Crawlers seeks to bring the humor the series is known for together with a new gameplay loop. A trailer for the spinoff, which Galante says Poncle has been working on for around four years, reveals a switch to first-person gameplay with some dungeon-crawling to boot.
Vampire Survivors 2 could be years away. In the meantime, players can look forward to Vampire Crawlers when it comes to PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S in 2026. For more, you can read our Vampire Survivors 1.0 review, where we gave Poncle’s popular monster-slaying game an 8/10.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
