V Rising Beginner’s Guide: Blood Types, Weapons, Quests, & more

Stunlock Studios' V Rising is an open-world Vampire survival game steeped with deep gameplay systems across PVE and PVP alike. But the world of Vardoran doesn’t take vampires too kindly, and before you get deep into the weeds, we're here to help you start on the right foot.

V Rising Beginner's Guide

Every new V Rising vampire has to start somewhere. Thankfully, it shouldn’t take long for you to familiarize yourself with the game’s basics.

Character Creation

Starting a new V Rising vampire means going through the character creation screen. Fortunately, creating a new character in the game is a fairly straightforward procedure. Some of the elements you can alter and set for your character include eye, skin, and hair color, and your vampire’s body type. Once you’re satisfied with your vampire’s appearance, click “Create,” and you’ll jump into the game.

Journal Quests

Next, you’ll go through the game’s Journal Quests, which are typically your guide to progress through the game. Note that you must complete these initial goals to unlock different in-game content and features. The Journal Quests you must go through are:

• Collecting the Remains: Collect 30x Bone (unlocks Bone Sword recipe)
• Wielding the Sword: Craft a Sword and slay three enemies using a Bone Sword (unlocks Bone Ring recipe)
• Mastering Magic: Craft a Bone Ring and hit enemies using Shadowbolt (unlocks Boneguard Vestment and Vermin Slave recipes)
• Armour of Bones: Craft the Boneguard armor set (unlocks the Bone Axes recipe)
• Into the Woods: Craft the Bone Axes and cut down three trees (unlocks the Bone Mace recipe)
• Stone Breaker: Craft a Mace and smash three rocks (unlocks the Castle Heart and Borders blueprints)
• Lord of Shadows: Construct and interact with a Castle Heart and place three Borders in your territory (unlocks Walls & Structures blueprint)
• Fortify: Place a Wooden Coffin, Wooden Stash, and three Palisades in your territory (unlocks Basic Crafting & Refinement blueprint)
• Getting Ready for the Hunt: Construct and interact with a Sawmill and Simple Workbench and increase Gear Level by crafting stronger equipment (unlocks Blood Altar blueprint)
• Blood Hunt: Construct and interact with a Blood Altar and drink blood from a V Blood carrier (unlocks Research Desk blueprint)
• The First Book in the Library: Construct and interact with a Research Desk (unlocks Walls & Structures blueprint)
• Expanding my Domain: Upgrade and interact with the Castle Heart (unlocks Mirrors blueprint)
• Building a Castle: Lay floors, place walls, and generate a roof to build a Castle (unlocks Stone Coffin blueprint)
• Lord of the Manor: Bind to a Stone Coffin (unlocks Servant Coffin blueprint)
• Servants: Construct and interact with a Servant Coffin (unlocks the Dominating Presence vampire power)
• Army of Darkness: Use Dominating Presence to capture and interact with a human servant (unlocks Castle Throne blueprint)
• Throne of Command: Command a Servant (unlocks The Eye of the Twilight blueprint)
• Soul Stones: Construct and interact with the Eye of Twilight (unlocks the ‘Imperious’ Wall Panels blueprint)
• Blood of Luminance: Drink the blood of Solarus the Immaculate (unlocks the Blood Key recipe)

Remember, take your time in completing these Journal Quests. Often, you’ll find yourselves stuck in a particular quest because you lack the gear and/or skill to proceed. Use this opportunity to know the game better for increased survivability in the world of Vardoran.

Placing Your Castle

After passing the tutorial area, V Rising greets new players by showing them the massiveness of Vardoran’s map. By now, you should have some objectives from the Journal Quests completed. So, your next goal at this point can be to select the best location for your castle. Look for flat, raised ground for your base. You can easily find these sites by checking the yellow-green tinted areas on your map. Building a castle in any of these locations is great, for they optimize both offense and defense. Now that you have the basics of the game covered, you now have the freedom to explore Vardoran, defeat V Blood bosses, and build the ultimate vampire at your pace.

V Rising Tips and Tricks for Beginners

Aside from the game’s basics, you’ll come across some particulars that the game doesn’t immediately tell you outright. Below are some additional tips and tricks to help you get your vampire adventure started.

1. Select the Right Server Experience For You

Before entering Vardoran, V Rising will ask you to select your preferred server. Your choices are:

• Player versus Environment (PvE): For solo or online co-op play with a focus on completing the game’s various objectives.
• Player versus Player (PvP): For players who like to go fang-to-fang and claw-to-claw with other human players to reach the top of vampiric ranks.
• Full Loot PvP: A PvP mode, but all carried loot drops upon death.
• Duo PvP: A PvP mode wherein players can form allegiances with other in-game participants.

2. Hunt Down the Best Blood Types

As a vampire in V Rising, you have the ability to consume blood from your foes (as long as they’re not undead). Blood is also an essential mechanic in the game. Without it, your character takes damage over time. Although you can’t die from natural blood loss, the game will leave you with one health, making it extremely difficult for you to survive. Additionally, different creatures have various blood types and qualities. Consuming blood will grant your vampire different buffs based on its type.

• Brute blood: Enhances health recovery, and primary damage and attack speed
• Creature blood: Enhances sun resistance, health regeneration, movement speed, and damage reduction
• Rogue blood: Enhances critical hit chance and movement speed, and reduces Travel Skill cooldown time
• Scholar blood: Enhances spell power and spell life leech, and reduces spell cooldown time
• Warrior blood: Enhances physical power and damage reduction, and reduces weapon skill cooldown time
• Worker blood: Enhances mount gallop speed and damage to resource points, and increases resource yield

3. Avoid Sunlight

Like the vampires of legends, sunlight is one of your worst enemies in V Rising. So, pay attention to the time of day by frequently looking at the clock on the upper right of the HUD. You’ll know when you’re about to take massive damage from sunlight if you see the following signs:

• Your character begins to show fiery orange sparks
• A ray of light appears from the heavens, beaming toward your character
• If you can’t seek shade or shelter in time, the screen shines brighter as time passes

Aside from these visual cues, you’ll also hear a distinct sound effect, signaling you to find shade soon. In a pinch, use your Travel Skill as much as possible to traverse large gaps faster than walking. Also, sunlight is only one of the other environmental hazards you should be aware of, especially with the Gloomrot expansion update, which also adds dangerous lightning strikes and choking mists.

4. Try Out Each Weapon to Find Your Playstyle

At the start, players can fight barehanded against enemies. Progressing through the tutorial will let the game tell you to craft a bone sword. This starter weapon can help you cut through basic enemies, but it won’t do you much good for tougher foes, and it's only your first taste of how weapons in V Rising work. Thankfully, V Rising gives lets players choose their preferred weapon types to accommodate their unique playstyles and builds. These weapon types are:

• Sword: An all-around weapon for hacking and slashing enemies and vegetation
• Axe: Although it only consumes one item box, your character will dual wield axes upon equipping the item
• Mace: Deals blunt damage and is good for mining minerals and rocks
• Spear: A mid-ranged weapon type, dealing great damage to certain creatures
• Reaper: A two-handed weapon with great efficacy against the undead
• Slasher: Dual-wielding blades with great efficacy against vegetation
• Crossbow: A ranged weapon to deal damage to faraway enemies

Additionally, extra weapon techniques will become available as you use higher-tiered weapons. In particular, you can unlock the second weapon technique by using copper or higher-quality weapons, and the third weapon technique unlocks with iron or higher-quality weapons. Selecting the right weapon that fits your playstyle will also help when going up against the game’s more difficult blood bosses.

5. Find Your First Mount

After exiting the tutorial area, you’ll likely end up somewhere in Farbane Woods. Head further north until you reach Dunley Farmlands. Here, you should find your first horse. Thankfully, taming a horse is easy in V Rising. You only need to walk up to the animal and press and hold the interact key (the default is the “F” key on the keyboard). Receiving your first mount allows you to return to your castle quickly from far adventures without worrying about the sun.

6. Log Out In Your Coffin (Or Else!)

At its core, V Rising is a persistent online game. However, that also means that your castle and your character remain online even if you log out. So, if you log out while your character is still out in the open, you won't enjoy what you see when logging back in. Alleviate this concern by building a coffin in your castle. Then, sleep in it before logging out of the game. Ready to be part of the night after our V Rising Beginner's Guide? Jump right into the vampiric adventure with a server here!