A $10 Game Pass Deckbuilder Just Scored 89 on Metacritic

Most studios would kill for an 89 on Metacritic. Most studios also charge $60 or $70 for the privilege. Vampire Crawlers costs $9.99, launched day one on Game Pass, and is currently sitting at the top of the Xbox Metacritic charts. The gap between what Poncle is charging and what they're delivering here feels almost absurd.

Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors (yes, that's the full name) dropped yesterday across Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, and PC. Developer Poncle, the triple-BAFTA-winning team behind Vampire Survivors, has completely reinvented its formula. Instead of the auto-shooter chaos that turned the original into a phenomenon, Crawlers is a first-person, turn-based deckbuilder with roguelite dungeon crawling. You build decks, chain cards in ascending mana order to land combos, hunt for weapon evolutions, and try to snowball your way into absurdly overpowered runs. The DNA of Vampire Survivors is there in the escalation loop, but the moment-to-moment play is entirely different.

I love when a studio takes a massive creative swing on a follow-up instead of shipping the same game with a "2" on the box. Poncle could have made Vampire Survivors with new maps and characters and sold millions. Instead they built a deckbuilder, a genre that lives or dies on mechanical depth, and critics are saying they pulled it off.

What reviewers are saying

Windows Central gave it 4.5 out of 5, calling it "a masterclass in what I call the 'sophomore pivot'" and praising how the "just one more run" magic survived the genre shift. Destructoid scored it 9/10, saying the roguelite itch "is scratched just as well as ever." Push Square landed at 8/10 with a warning about its "terribly addictive nature," and GameSpot matched that score, calling it "every bit as gripping" as the original. The Sixth Axis was more measured at 7/10, wanting deeper mechanics, while PC Gamer's 5/10 dragged the PC average down to 80. The Xbox average sits at 89, with Switch at 82.

Not a unanimous slam dunk, then, but the spread tells an interesting story. The lower scores mostly point to a ceiling on mechanical depth rather than broken fundamentals. That's a fair criticism for deckbuilder veterans who want something as layered as Slay the Spire or Inscryption, but for a $10 game that's also free on Game Pass, the value proposition is borderline ridiculous.

The combo system is where Crawlers earns its hook. You play cards in ascending mana cost order, and each step in the chain multiplies the next card's effect. Wild cards let you bridge gaps in the sequence, so a hand that looks mediocre can turn into a screen-clearing chain if you sequence it right. Weapon evolutions return from Vampire Survivors but work differently here; you need specific card combinations in your deck and then find a red orb from a chest or statue to trigger the evolution. There are permanent stat upgrades between runs, too, funded by gold you earn in dungeons. It's a loop that rewards both planning and experimentation, and the fact that you can play turns as fast as you want or slow down and think gives it a flexibility most deckbuilders lack.

Poncle priced this at $9.99 and put it on Game Pass day one. Compare that to the industry trend of $70 games shipping with $25 battle passes and rotating cosmetic stores. I'm not saying every game needs to cost ten bucks, but when a studio delivers an 89-rated game at this price point without a single predatory monetisation hook, it deserves to be highlighted. Game Pass subscribers don't even need to spend that. If you have the subscription, Vampire Crawlers is sitting there right now, waiting to eat your evening.

The game is available now on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, and PC, with Xbox Play Anywhere support included.