Night Swarm comes to PC on December 4th. Build up your vampire kingdom, grow in power, and fight through waves of creatures in this survivors-like roguelite by Fubu Games (Rogue Loop). With publishing by Mad Mushroom (Hell Clock) and Gamersky Games (Tiny Pasture, Drova), you can pick it up soon, only on Steam.
Vampires Always be Surviving
I don’t know if Vampire Survivors was the first ever of its genre, but I feel like it was at least one of the earliest. It most definitely defines the genre if nothing else. Night Swarm may not have vampire in the name but it sure seems more of that theme between the two. Let me tell you about this latest horde survivors-like in the review below.
Gameplay
Night Swarm is a horde survivors-like roguelite. Play as a young vampire chosen to lead the underworld kingdom against other creatures of the night. Locate and recruit allies and familiar faces to empower future runs and expansions. Earn experience to advance and eventually fuse sets of offensive skills. Advance through branching paths to customize your run. The order in which you choose to do anything is up to you.
As you rebuild the castle, it’s rooms and inhabitants become accessible, and further permanent advancements become unlockable. These advancements come in several forms similar to other roguelite games and are a mixture of passive and active improvements. I haven’t quite gotten deep enough into the game to see it in action, but I did note that the space for active artifacts in your character’s stats is quite large. Hopefully advancing further will allow for more consistent pickups, or to start with a select few.
For whatever reason it really bothers me that horde survivors-like games have nearly the same visual mechanic for earning experience. Night Swarm too has them. It’s the XP gems that get me. Maybe I just wasn’t a big enough Zelda gamer when I was growing up? Seriously though, there was opportunity to use anything else besides gems – souls, skulls, flames, etc. – and chose not to. Maybe I don’t play enough table top games, and gems are just the catch-all association, like a D20 for D&D. But I digress.
Graphics & Audio
The game’s animated tabletop aesthetic plays very well with the core mechanics and setting of Night Swarm. I especially appreciate the movement animations throughout. The game is built for PC and plays very well at default settings on the Steam Deck. At this point, as I know I mention often, if it is this kind of quick action roguelite gameplay, I better be able to take it with me. Night Swarm is no exception. The game’s look and feel actually reminds me a lot of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. It must be the huge gold gems.
The audio track in Night Swarm is also fairly impressive. Apparently we all just associate vampires with the upper class, and therefore they must listen to string quartets and orchestral arrangements. The music is indeed beautiful but when it has emphasis on certain parts, those get fairly obnoxious when heard on repeat for too long. I was looking at the game’s store page to see if a soundtrack is available and was going to mention the quality of the voiceovers… but then found the disclaimer at the bottom of the page under the “AI Generated Content Disclosure”. Fubu Games advises through this disclaimer that the game includes AI-generated voiceovers in parts, in addition to some artwork that was created with the assistance of AI tools.
For the record, in no way does Thumb Culture condone or support the use of AI-generated content. It’s unfortunate that studios big and small turn to using it as a cost-saving measure, especially in the creative space. It is also hard to separate the AI work from the developer’s work when it is given such a broad definition. So as much as I want to compliment the art style, design, and voiceover work, I really can’t do so with confidence.
Longevity
Night Swarm has several different zones to unlock with three difficulty levels per zone. With the number of ability and passive relics and skills to find, a typical player could easily get their money worth. There are also a decent number of achievements if that’s more your style of completionism.
Final Thoughts
Although Night Swarm still outranks some of my other recent games, there are some areas for improvement. It has taken a lot of the foundation of the genre and built only mildly upon it rather than reshape it into more of it’s own image.
What is there is at least enough to earn Night Swarm the Thumb Culture Silver Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
If you enjoy this review, be sure to check out my other reviews here.
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