The game casts you as the son of Van Helsing, legendary vampire hunter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. You traipse around an alternate-history 19th century Europe, slaying the undead, werewolves, and any number of horrible, mad science creations. In classic, Diablo-derived ARPG form this involves a lot of strategic clicking as you gather experience, climb up a skill tree, spam health and magic potions, and collect incrementally-improved loot.
It’s a studied genre piece that smartly draws from the accrued innovations of its predecessors, such as taking a page from Torchlight by giving you a ghostly companion that fights alongside you and can be sent back to town to offload kipple and bring back fat stacks of gold, letting your mayhem continue unhindered. The game also integrates tower defense sequences that add a nice bit of original spice.
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing came out in 2013 for PC and Xbox 360, and its sequel the following year for PC. With all that experience under its belt, NeoCoreGames should be able to deliver a thoroughly refined and definitive edition of their promising ARPG. If Diablo III isn’t quite scratching your itch on consoles, Van Helsing will be a nice–and likely less expensive–alternative. No date was given in the teaser tweet, so we will let you know as more concrete information comes to light.
