Vampire Survivors was one of 2022’s break-out indie successes, a crudely animated 2D auto-shooter in which you moved your Castlevania-inspired character around screens filled with kerbillions of enemies, gaining new automatically triggered attacks and defenses by picking up the diamond-shaped gems dropped by fallen enemies. The more you played, the more characters you unlocked and the more skills would became available as you leveled up. Now meet Megabonk, a 2025 indie success, a crudely animated 3D auto-shooter in which you move your character around screens filled with kerbillions of enemies, gaining new automatically triggered attacks and defenses by picking up the diamond-shaped gems dropped by fallen enemies. The more you play, the more characters you unlock and the more skills become available as you level up.
The absolutely blatant way in which Megabonk takes inspiration from Vampire Survivors doesn’t seem to be doing it any harm. Then again, the most played games in the world are Roblox-made knock-offs, so no big surprises there. Oh, and quite importantly, Megabonk is a ton of fun to play. I mean, a 3D Vampire Survivors sounds like it would be, right? Also, to be scrupulously fair, this game from first-time developer vedinad does have some of its own original ideas…if you look hard enough.
© vedinad
In Megabonk, you move your chosen character (at the start you can choose between a nimble fox with a starting fireball and a clunky armored knight with a swingy sword) around the PS2-like 3D space, with enemies pinging into existence all around you. Much like in VS, you then learn how to move around in a way that’s appropriate for your attacks while trying to shepherd the crowd of enemies chasing you such that you can loop around and pick up the gems dropped by those you’ve killed. Gather enough of these and you’ll level up, and be able to pick from three randomly selected upgrades; a mix of new attacks, improvements for current ones, and various “tomes” that improve your defensive skills.
Scattered around the land are vases to break for extra coins and gems, treasure chests that can be opened by spending coins and which then grant you a randomly selected bonus item), and stone pillars that, when stood near for long enough, will improve something like health regen, knockback efficacy, spawning times for elite enemies, that sort of thing. It’s about trying to maintain your health bar for as long as you can, before losing everything and returning to the main screen. Here, if you’ve managed to gather enough silver coins or reached certain milestones (killed 1,000 skeletons, say), you can unlock new characters, weapons and tomes.
Which, yes, pretty much entirely describes Vampire Survivors. But here you can jump! And glide!
For all I mock, I’m having a good time with it. It’s difficult enough from the start that it makes you want to keep finding those incremental improvements—that’s a mistake a lot of Vampire Survivors clones make (and let’s not forget, there have been so many of them over the last three years), where things are too easy near the start, so you get too far into your early runs before difficulty ramps up, making it feel laborious to go through it over and over. But here, as in Vampire Survivors, I’m finding there’s a sense of strategy in seeking the things that let me improve each run.
© vedinad
In fact, if anything it’s just how, er, “faithfully” Megabonk sticks to the VS formula that is the secret of its success. So many knock-offs sensibly attempt to add their own twists, but too many of those break the formula. It’s perhaps not exactly high praise to point out how Megabonk‘s lack of originality helps it succeed, but it remains true.
Despite costing twice as much as Vampire Survivors (which is still an extraordinary $5), Megabonk is proving that success in player numbers. While it’s not exactly troubling the tops of the charts, 20,000 concurrent players for a first-time dev’s crude-looking indie game is no small feat, and it only released at the end of last week. The game’s already hitting that number today, and the U.S. has barely woken up, so it seems this game is still growing. It’s also boosted by glowing Steam reviews, with the game bathing in 91 percent positive ratings, affording it the highly coveted “Overwhelmingly Positive” label. It’s that combination of a winning formula (albeit somebody else’s) and a massive amount of luck that lets Steam games occasionally see this sort of buzz. And what a treat for the developer, whomever they may be—according to their BlueSky, the game had sold over 100,000 copies by the end of the weekend.
That’s life-changing money, and you love to see it.
And yes, of course there have been other 3D VS reimaginings, not least last year’s FPS incarnation Vampire Hunters, but it’s so interesting when something catches the zeitgeist in this way. It’s even more satisfying when the resulting game is a bunch of fun to play, too. Even if poncle might feel like he’s owed a couple of bucks as a result.
