Vampire Survivors

Vampire Survivors started as a free browser toy in 2021 and turned into one of the defining games of its kind: you walk a tiny wizard around a field, your weapons fire on their own, and you survive a rising tide of monsters by picking upgrades every time you level. A full run lasts about half an hour. It costs around three dollars on PC and console, and nothing at all on your phone, which makes it one of the easiest games to recommend to anyone with any device.

The part worth understanding before you spread it across your devices is the cross-save. It exists almost everywhere, which is rare, but it works by hand rather than on its own, and it leaves your paid expansions behind when it moves. Progress travels; purchases do not.

Game overview

You pick a character, drop into a stage, and move. The attacks fire on their own, so the whole game is about positioning and the choices you make at each level-up: which weapons to take, which to evolve, and how to build a screen-clearing engine before the monster count overwhelms you. By the twenty-minute mark a good build turns the screen into a wall of damage, and the satisfaction is watching a careful set of picks pay off.

A standard run is capped at about thirty minutes. At the thirty-minute mark a Reaper appears and ends the run, with more following if you linger, unless you switch on Endless mode. That hard cap is part of why it suits short sessions: a run has a known length, and you can pause it at any moment because it is your game and your clock.

It grew well past the base game. poncle has shipped a steady run of expansions, including crossovers with Castlevania, SaGa, and Balatro, and the game is still in active development in 2026 with more on the way.

Where you can play it

Almost everywhere.

On PC it is on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and PC Game Pass through the Microsoft Store. The Steam version is Steam Deck Verified at the top tier, with native controls and readable text, and it is one of the most-played games on the Deck.

On console it is on Xbox One and Series, on Game Pass, and on PS4 and PS5. On a Switch it plays in handheld, tabletop, or docked, and on a Switch 2 it runs through backward compatibility today. poncle announced a dedicated Switch 2 version in June 2026, with better performance and optional mouse support, though without a date. That same June 2026 update renamed the game to Vampire Survivors: First Survivaton.

On mobile the base game is free on both iOS and Android. The only monetisation is an opt-in button to watch an ad for bonus gold on the game-over screen, and there are no forced ads. The expansions are paid in-app purchases, the same ones as on PC.

Cross-saves and keeping your progress

This is the honest flag, and it has two parts.

Cross-save covers most platforms: Switch, Steam, Epic, Xbox, iOS, and Android, all through a free poncle account. Apple Arcade is the exception. That breadth is unusual and welcome. The catch is that it is manual. You open the in-game My Account menu, push your save to a cloud slot on one device, and load it on another, and nothing happens in the background. If you forget to save up before you put the phone down, the Deck will not have your latest run when you pick it up.

The second part is the one that surprises people. Your DLC does not travel with the save. There is no cross-buy, so a save that uses an expansion will load on another platform, but the expansion content stays locked unless you also bought that expansion there. Progress is portable; purchases are per-platform. For a player juggling a phone, a Deck, and a Switch, that is the thing to plan around: buy your expansions on the device you play them on.

Features that matter on the move

• Free on your phone. The full base game costs nothing on iOS and Android, with opt-in ads only, which makes a phone the lowest-friction way to carry it.
• Thirty-minute runs with a hard cap. A run has a known length, and you can pause it at any point, so it fits a commute or a flight.
• Steam Deck Verified at the top tier. Native controls, readable text, and a top-played Deck game.
• Manual cross-save, DLC excluded. Your progress moves across most platforms if you sync it by hand; your paid expansions stay where you bought them.
• Co-op when you want it. Local couch co-op for four on every platform, and online co-op for four on PC and console.

Recommended setup

The phone is the obvious entry point because the base game is free, and a Bluetooth controller turns it into a proper handheld session. On PC or Steam Deck the 8BitDo Pro 2 is a comfortable pad for a game you hold for half an hour at a stretch.

If you play across devices, decide where your expansions live before you buy them, because they do not cross-buy. Pick the platform you spend the most time on for the paid content, use the manual cross-save to carry your base progress to the others, and remember to push your save before you switch screens.

See our cross-saves guide for how manual cross-save like this compares with automatic systems across the portable library, the controllers guide for the best pads to pair with a phone or a Deck, and the Steam Deck vs Switch 2 cornerstone for choosing your main handheld.

Verdict

Vampire Survivors is the rare game that is both free on your phone and worth buying on everything else, a half-hour roguelite that turns a careful set of upgrades into a screen-filling power trip. The cross-save reaches almost every platform, which beats most of the library, as long as you accept that you sync it by hand and that your paid expansions stay on the platform where you bought them. Start free on the phone, buy your expansions where you play them most, and push your save before you move to the next screen.