"Vampire Survivors Dev Discusses Film Adaptation Hurdles: 'No Plot'"

Vampire Survivors developer Poncle has shed light on the challenges of adapting their hit game into a film, originally announced as an animated series. The project, now shifting towards a live-action film, faces a unique hurdle: "the game has no plot." Despite this, Poncle is still collaborating with Story Kitchen on the adaptation, as confirmed in a recent Steam post.

Poncle emphasized their cautious approach, stating, "As mentioned last year, rather than jumping the gun and make stuff for the sake of making it, we have preferred to wait to find partners that felt right, especially because to make anything that isn't a video game out of Vampire Survivors requires good ideas, creativity, and that quirky knowledge of the game." They acknowledged the difficulty in finding the perfect blend of these elements, saying, "That is a very difficult triplet to get 100% right. Please remember the game has no plot — it doesn't? — so nobody can really anticipate how a film about it is going to be. That is part of what makes it exciting."

Poncle humorously noted the irony of the situation, sarcastically mentioning, "the most important thing in Vampire Survivors is the story." The lack of a clear narrative in the game leaves the adaptation's direction uncertain, and no release date has been set yet.

Vampire Survivors, a fast-paced gothic horror game with rogue-lite elements, became a surprise hit after its humble indie launch on Steam. The game's popularity soared, leading Poncle to enrich it with new content, now boasting 50 playable characters and 80 weapons, not including the two major expansions and the Ode to Castlevania DLC.

In IGN's 8/10 review, they praised the game's simplicity and depth, saying, "Need a game to play while listening to podcasts? This is it. Vampire Survivors is outwardly simple but turns out to be an incredibly deep hole to fall down — though it's not without extended dull periods when you get ahead of its curve."