Vampire Survivors dev admits it has no plot but is getting a movie anyway

January 21, 20254 Mins Read

Vampire Survivors key art Dracula looking character and green hooded figure holding a whip stare forward — Add another upcoming game to movie adaptation to the pile (poncle)

Developer poncle has casually dropped the news that Vampire Survivors is getting a live action movie while teasing more cross-media projects to come in 2025.

When even games barely anyone remembers, like Sega’s Eternal Champions, are set to receive movie adaptations, it should come as no surprise to hear that indie hit Vampire Survivors has secured its own live action film deal.

This is on top of the animated TV show that was announced in 2023. Both adaptations are being produced by Story Kitchen, which seems to be a go-to for such projects, as it’s also handling Amazon’s upcoming live action Tomb Raider show as well as the Streets Of Rage and Shinobi movies for Sega.

Developer Luca ‘poncle’ Galante has had nothing concrete to share about either project, but he has acknowledged that both will be tricky to get right, because of the game’s almost complete lack of story.

This is something we discussed regarding Sega’s movie plans, where the company seemed to be oblivious to the fact that most of its old games had only the flimsiest of narratives.

However, Galante does seem to be aware of this obvious problem. In a recent Steam post recapping all of 2024’s Vampire Survivors content, he talks about how he and his team wanted to take their time finding the right partners for adaptations because of how difficult such projects will be.

‘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, that is a very difficult triplet to get 100% right,’ explains Galante.

That said, he does find the prospect exciting, specifically because of Vampire Survivors’ lack of a proper story, adding: ‘Nobody can really anticipate how a film about it is going to be.’

For what it’s worth, Vampire Survivors does have some backstory involving a Dracula stand-in called Bisconte Draculó, who unleashes monsters in rural Italy, which prompts the Belpaese family to stop him.

It’s all very Castlevania, but this does afford a vague basis for a movie or TV show plot, while allowing lots of creative freedom with how the characters and overall tone are handled.

In fact, that’s precisely what Galante suggested when we spoke with him last year: ‘In Vampire Survivors, there isn’t a strong and coherent narrative. For me that’s a very strong point, actually. Because whoever is writing the TV series, the movie, whatever… it gives them creative freedom to tell whatever story they want.’

Galante has also teased other cross-media projects that the team is hoping to reveal later this year, though you probably shouldn’t expect any in-depth teasers for the movie or TV show.

Both projects are likely still in the early stages and Galante also says that they’re ‘respecting all the strikes,’ which suggests the ongoing Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) strike is having an impact on production.