Vampire Survivors Dev Poncle Outlines Challenges of Film Adaptation: 'The Game Has No Plot'

Vampire Survivors developer Poncle has shed light on the challenges of adapting their game into a film, initially announced as an animated series. In a recent Steam post, Poncle confirmed ongoing collaboration with Story Kitchen for a live-action film, despite the original 2023 announcement of an animated series. The core difficulty, Poncle noted, stems from the game's lack of a traditional plot, making the adaptation process particularly complex.

Poncle emphasized their commitment to finding the right partners and ensuring the adaptation captures the essence of Vampire Survivors. "As mentioned last year, rather than jumping the gun and make stuff for the sake of making it, we have preferred to wait to find partners that felt right, especially because to make anything that isn't a video game out of Vampire Survivors requires good ideas, creativity, and that quirky knowledge of the game," Poncle stated. They acknowledged the challenge in balancing these elements, saying, "That is a very difficult triplet to get 100% right. Please remember the game has no plot — it doesn't? — so nobody can really anticipate how a film about it is going to be. That is part of what makes it exciting."

Poncle humorously remarked on the irony of adapting a game with no story, sarcastically noting, "the most important thing in Vampire Survivors is the story." As a result, the nature of the film adaptation remains uncertain, and no release date has been set.

Vampire Survivors is a fast-paced, gothic horror rogue-lite game that became an unexpected hit on Steam, growing from a humble indie title to a sensation with a massive following. The game has evolved significantly, now boasting 50 playable characters and 80 weapons, along with two major expansions and the Ode to Castlevania DLC.

In IGN's 8/10 review, the game was praised for its deceptive simplicity and deep gameplay, though it was noted that players might experience lulls when they outpace the game's challenges. "Need a game to play while listening to podcasts? This is it. Vampire Survivors is outwardly simple but turns out to be an incredibly deep hole to fall down — though it's not without extended dull periods when you get ahead of its curve," IGN stated.