So, so many Vampire Survivors clones came out this year – PC Gamer
Is “survivors” distinct enough from “survival” to be the name of an entirely different genre? I’m not sure, but we’re almost certainly in the midst of a mini genre boom of Vampire Survivors-likes, our favorite roguelike of 2022 and the game of the year most likely to spawn waves of imitators in the near future. It’s already started happening in 2022, despite Vampire Survivors launching in quiet, unfinished early access form barely a year ago.
Gaming’s Time to Copycat quotient is at an all-time high. When MMOs and then MOBAs were all the rage, it took years for shallow knock-offs of WoW and League of Legends to crop up, and years more for them to become so oversaturated that there was room for nothing left but bombs. In 2017, it took Fortnite only six months to pivot to battle royale to piggyback off PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ success and inspire a whole slew of battle royales; in early 2019, Dota Auto Chess got copycats from Valve and Riot just five months later.
That felt preposterous a few years ago, but it’s normal now—just look at how many Wordle clones came out this year. What feels like it’s changed, over time, is the scale of game that can snap the whole industry’s head around, dollar signs in its eyes. It used to take a Gears of War or PUBG to inspire a genre sea change; now it can be something like Vampire Survivors, which cost $2.99 and was just a hobby project for developer Poncle until it unexpectedly blew up. (In classic genre trendsetter fashion, Vampire Survivors popularized, rather than invented, the mechanics of an earlier mobile game called Magic Survival).
The pace of new genre big bangs may mean they go extinct more quickly than ever before, too—perhaps we don’t need a name for games like Vampire Survivors, if no clones manage to stick around. But this discussion on ResetEra includes some strong contenders:
- Idle Shooter – Honors the roots of browser idle games like Cookie Clicker
- Single Stick Shooter – A clear twist on the popularized twin-stick shooter
- Auto Shooter – Slightly broad, but improved mightily by Jeff Gerstmann’s suggestion of Auto Shooter Survival, or ASS games
- Bullet heaven – A sublime twist on the classic shmup “bullet hell,” except this time it’s your enemies that are in hell
Bullet heaven gets my vote, but ASS games is a close second. Whatever we call them, here are some of the heavenly ASS games that came out in 2022. Odds are good we’ll see many more in 2023.
First release: August (Prologue) | Price: $10
This game was …….