Vampire Survivors spin-off unveiled in surprisingly good Xbox Partner Preview

Xbox has hosted a surprisingly worthwhile third party showcase, with a release date for Reanimal but surprisingly no mention of Silent Hill 2.

There have been so many lamentable trends in gaming this year that some of the more minor issues have been pushed to the sidelines. But it sure is a shame that Nintendo Direct style online showcases are no longer the exciting preview events they used to be.

The ones from Sony and Nintendo this year have been largely uninteresting, whether the games featured are good or not, and while Xbox has probably had the best of it, you always have to put up with the increasingly unpalatable execs and their disingenuous promises.

Announced out of the blue just a few days ago, no one was expecting much from Thursday evening’s Xbox Partner Preview, but it was actually pretty good and debuted an unexpected new spin-off to Vampire Survivors.

The secret to the showcase’s success was very simple: not only were there no Xbox execs but there was hardly any talking at all, and what little there was featured a British voiceover. That also meant that the show was able to zip along at a fair pace, even if a few of the segments did seem to go on a bit long.

Everything kicked off with Armatus, which for some reason we initially took to be a Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 spin-off. It’s not and is instead a roguelite set in Paris, with what seem to be Soulslike undertones. It features procedurally-spawned rooms and enemies and is due out sometime next year.

Like all the games showcased, Armatus is multiformat and has nothing specifically to do with Microsoft. Although a number of the titles featured will be available on Game Pass day one, as you can see listed below.

The showcase was almost exactly 30 minutes long, so we’d advise watching the whole thing, but the highlight was arguably Vampire Crawlers, a deck-building role-playing game (specifically a dungeon crawler influenced by Dungeon Keeper and the ancient Wizardry series) that is the first major spin-off from Vampire Survivors.

Vampire Crawlers is apparently the first of many planned spin-offs but, as you can see, this shares a similar pixel art visual style, while also paying homage to old school gameplay mechanics. Although the deck-building and card customisation might not be to everyone’s taste developer poncle insists that you can play the game at any speed you like, including ‘as fast as you humanly can’, so it does still have strong links back to the original game.

The majority of games featured were indie titles, but IO Interactive were also there to promote 007: First Light (including a new collaboration with Aston Martin) and Hitman: World Of Association (with the next elusive target revealed as Eminem/Slim Shady). We had an interview with IO’s CEO a few hours before the event, so we’ll reveal what was discussed then shortly.

THQ Nordic’s Reanimal, from the makers of Little Nightmares 1 and 2 (but not 3) were also on hand to announce a release date for the game, of February 13 next year.

The games with the longest amount of screentime were Chinese action adventure Tides Of Annihilation, which is very loosely based on Arthurian legend, and third person actioner Zoopunk. They both looked fine but, if anything, having much longer segments than any of the other games worked against them, as their previews did seem to go on a bit.

A number of brand new games were announced, including Echo Generation 2, one of several voxel-based games featured, with the ambitious looking Erosion having a very intriguing trailer. Alien invasion/petrol station simulator Roadside Research also looked like it could be amusing.

If you’re wondering who Sam Preeble is, when he was promoted as the creator of Total Chaos, he’s a prominent Doom modder. Total Chaos started life as a total conversion of Doom 2, which is not something you’d guess simply by watching the trailer.

There was no real mic drop at the end of showcase, although Raji: An Ancient Epic sequel Raji: Kaliyuga did seem interesting and, like many of the other games, is coming to Game Pass Ultimate from day one.

The final surprise of the night was the Silent Hill 2 remake was not mentioned, despite it having been leaked to hell and back. It’s apparently available right now in Australia, although at time of writing it’s not on the UK store.

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