Vampire Survivors is getting four-player couch co-op so you can slay bloodsuckers with BFFs

As if you needed more of a reason to while away the hours listening to Vampire Survivors’ strangely entrancing OST while mowing down thousands of skeletons, ghosts and vampires, 2022’s more moreish and BEST game is getting local co-op.

Vampire Survivors devs poncle confirmed that the upcoming multiplayer mode would be released as yet another free update. Which, honestly, given that the game itself only costs about as much as a sandwich (or, at least, did before everything in the UK jumped a decimal place in price), is a hell of a good deal on top of a hell of a good deal.

Up to three pals will be able to jump in with you to splash around Holy Water and carve your way through the approaching hordes of ghoulies. Poncle said that Vampire Survivors’ basic gameplay stays pretty much untouched despite the extra players, with a few tweaks.

Those tweaks include the players sharing the experience bar and taking it in turns to level up to get new weapons and abilities. You’ll also need to stay on the same screen together - there won’t be splitscreen - and, while there won’t be a dedicated versus mode, there will apparently be ways to “sabotage each other” during the standard levels. You’ll also all need to be different characters, so disagreements might occur before you even hit start.

Due to apparent “technical limitations”, any extra players will need their own controller to hop in - whether that’s a full controller or additional keyboard. So, no huddling up to share different ends of the same keyboard.

While the co-op will officially only be local multiplayer, the devs highlighted that Steam Remote Play is one potential solution for letting you play across the internet with friends.

The couch co-op will let you play through the whole game and its DLC together, with no plans to add any co-op-specific levels. Your current progress will carry over, and you can hop in and out of co-op as you like. There also won’t be anything like achievements or characters specifically locked behind co-op either, for those who prefer to keep it solo.

Vampire Survivors’ couch co-op will launch as a free update on August 17th, with a test planned ahead of the full release for those running its new engine beta. (Which you can try for yourself by using the access code newenginepls via its Steam properties menu.) As well as PC, Mac, mobile and consoles, the update will also be headed to Steam Deck, if you really want to try and cram around the screen with four people.