There was a time before vampires were wet teenage dreams glittering in the daylight. We played these ten games about ice-cold seducers, murderers without a mirror image or peepers who were forced into diving suits until the end credits.
10th place: BloodRayne
Lock up your vampires when Uwe Boll roams the streets! The legendary bad strip BloodRayne and its sequels are known to be based on a video game from the year 2004. The core theme is the eponymous “Dhampir” lady Rayne, half-human, half bloodsucker, whose mother was murdered by her father. From then on she is trained by a mysterious organization to kill vampires and seeks revenge. In this hack-and-slash action-adventure with shooter elements, you'll slash your way across the world on anti-vampire contracts. Contrary to the film version, BloodRayne is a solid game whose name was only dragged through the dirt in the years that followed.
9th place: Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York
Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York is a visual novel, which means that most of the time you'll follow a story in writing, with beautifully animated illustrations, and occasionally make reasonably relevant decisions. You wake up one day as a newly transformed vampire and are introduced to the New York bloodsucking socialites by a mysterious benefactor, in which you will soon find yourself as a pawn of the powers that be in the midst of a secret war behind the scenes of the local vampire clans of sophisticated Camarilla and bloodthirsty finds anarchs. The game impresses above all with its many small subplots, which provide a fascinating insight into the multi-layered universe of Vampire: The Masquerade. The fun lasts about five hours,
8th place: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
As a relic of the 80s, it was time for Castlevania to reinvent itself. Under the watchful eye of Hideo Kojima himself, the later Metroid Dread developers MercurySteam developed the 3D reboot Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. The classic Metroidvania formula has been flipped like the proverbial corpse in the grave. It might have been a slap in the face for long-established fans, but flogging all sorts of monsters with Gabriel Belmont in the best Kratos-style from the third-person perspective got fresh blood rushing through the veins of the series. A rock-solid base to build on the formula, you might think. But after Lords of Shadow 2 spectacularly flopped, Dracula's coffin seems to have finally been buried.
7th place: The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing -mw
Demons and action RPGs seem to go hand in hand somehow. Loosely based on Bram Stoker's novel, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing blends the legendary vampire hunter with the addictive game mechanics of Diablo. While most vampire games are mostly about lurking in the dark, this game, almost paragon of contrast, blasts at everything that mad scientists can cobble together in their labs. The budget, which is not nearly as big as Diablo, shimmers through the shadows of Van Helsing's Gothic Noir world, but with its mixture of monsters, magic, and crazy alchemy with humorous undertones, it shows its teeth at the mostly serious colleagues.
6th place: Code Vein
At first glance, Code Vein doesn't look like a vampire-themed game, and if you're being honest, not even the second or third. Instead of sallow-skinned bloodsuckers with fangs, you'll get to know a group of teenagers here, whose pubertal airs seem to have come straight out of an anime soap opera and whose female members only wear as much material as is just enough to cover the bare essentials of their gigantic breasts. In fact, in Bandai Namco's Soulslike title, we find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic world where a plague has afflicted the last survivors with an insatiable thirst for blood, either turning them into soulless monsters or endowing them with supernatural powers.
5th place: Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars
The human and vampire races have lived in an uneasy truce for centuries. By regularly paying their blood as taxes to the vampire rulers, humans buy themselves a life of precarious peace. But that should be over now, and a war breaks out in which each of the different vampire clans senses their chance to become the new ruler of the world. Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars is a turn-based strategy game in the style of Heroes of Might & Magic, which not only stands out from the big role model with its fresh setting but can also come up with pleasantly fresh game ideas.
4th place: Vampire
For Vampyr, the Life is Strange creators have jumped the guns and temporarily turned their backs on teen heartbreak for a gritty game in the spirit of Vampire: The Masquerade and Bloodborne. Vampyr puts you in the role of a doctor who has just become a vampire after the end of the First World War, whose fate is at the crossroads between good and evil. Depending on whether he indulges his bloodlust or keeps his conscience, the atmosphere in the streets of London changes, which also affects the level of difficulty.
3rd place: Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
What do we miss the Legacy of Kain series with its dark story about the vampire Cain, which was already sophisticated for the time. In particular, the sequel Soul Reaver was ahead of its time, in addition to the jump to the third-person perspective, mainly due to the possibility of switching between the material level and the spectral level, which created some ingenious puzzles. Amy Henning, who many probably know for the story of Uncharted, was already laying the foundation for her influential career in the games industry. In terms of content, Soul Reaver struck an even darker note. Vampire Raziel, who reaches the next level in the development of a vampire and develops wings even before his master Kain, is unceremoniously relieved of his new body parts by him. Thrust into the Soul Stream for this "presumption" to eternal damnation, the horribly disfigured Raziel swears vengeance with his new abilities. Rumors of a revival of the series have been circulating for years, but unfortunately have not come true to this day.
2nd place: Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines
Even though Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has been in development hell for years, there's a reason why the title based on the pen & paper template is still so hotly anticipated: the brilliant predecessor. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines from 2004 set standards that in many respects have remained unmatched to this day: Above all, the great freedom of choice and the branching stories ensured the role-playing game's continued cult status. Depending on which class you choose at the beginning or which of the extremely different vampire clans you join, dialogues, entire scenes, and essential parts of the story develop completely differently in each game run. Bloodlines was also a sensation in terms of staging: The level in the haunted mansion is still considered one of the scariest in gaming history. But humor wasn't neglected either: try talking to a traffic light as a bat-like Nosferatu and you'll see what real madness is. Unfortunately, the release was overshadowed by so many bugs at the time that Bloodlines never got the success it deserved.
1st place: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
How could we talk about vampire games without talking about Castlevania? While Konami seems to have little interest in the video game business and its iconic brands these days, we have the studio to thank for the genre-defining line-up led by Symphony of the Night. The Playstation offshoot took the best elements of its predecessors and combined them into one true masterpiece. Epic boss fights and the early version of an open world combined with RPG elements made Symphony of the Night the gold standard of the series. While Alucard's adventures didn't do particularly well, it gradually earned a reputation as a cult classic.
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