Play this vampire survival hit for free this weekend on PC

I’ve been on the fence about V Rising, which came out of early access this past May. On the one hand, it’s an RPG where you play as a vampire — hunting for victims and building your influence in a dark, gothic world. On the other hand, that comes along with survival game mechanics, which can be difficult to balance between intricate and fun. Off the bat (pun intended), you have to manage your days to avoid sunlight and drink blood regularly, which feels similar to more challenging survival games that require you to eat and drink.

If you’re like me, you might be interested in this limited promotion from the developers at Stunlock Studios. From today, September 12, until 1 p.m. ET on September 16, you can check out V Rising on PC for free as long as you have a Steam account. If you become drawn in during the event, you can get the game for $25 (30% off), along with all cosmetic DLC for 20% off, until September 24. The full V Rising game and DLC bundle is 31% off at $72. This matches the biggest discount on the game since launch to date.

V Rising also released a Legacy of Castlevania special edition at launch in June, with various Castlevania-themed cosmetics for both PC and PlayStation 5 players. The Steam version of this DLC is also on sale for $16.

Unfortunately, there is no such deal for PS5 players. Sorry, PlayStation owners. Maybe next time.

V Rising launched in early access before taking off on Steam. Seems that a lot of people took to its genre mix, open world, and resource management since Stunlock was able to boast 500,000 players within the first five days, and a million in the first week. So far, a lot of people have been enjoying this free weekend. At the time of this writing, SteamDB has it tracking at around 10,900 concurrent players.