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Vampire Survivors created a genre almost by accident. The formula — automatic attacks, escalating hordes, random upgrades that stack into absurdity — turned out to be endlessly adaptable, and the games that followed have taken it in directions the original never suggested.
The closest matches
Megabonk — $9.99, 105,908 reviews
The biggest bullet-heaven since the original. Randomly generated maps, upgrades that arrive by rarity, and the same core question: how long can you survive before the screen fills.
HoloCure — Free, 99% from 40,681 reviews
Explicitly built on Vampire Survivors and Magic Survival, and rated higher than most commercial games in the genre. Costs nothing.
Yet Another Zombie Survivors — $9.74, 92% rated
The key change: you control a squad, not a single hero. Characters aim and shoot on their own, and you build synergies between them rather than one character build.
Same structure, different genre
Everything is Crab — $9.99
The horde-survival loop applied to evolution. 125+ evolutions build a different creature every run, and the thing you are resisting is turning into a crab.
HYPERDROP
The upgrade-stacking loop applied to pachinko. You upgrade pegs until the board detonates on every drop, then watch it play itself.
Combolands — $7.99, 98% rated
Applied to city building, in 30-minute runs. 21 guild combinations, cascading combos, and the same compulsion to try one more.
Feed the Scorchpot — $11.99
Applied to dice. Build a hex-grid scoring engine across your island, then rebuild it as the dragon gets pickier over twenty years.
Dialoop — $7.99
Applied to match-3, with deckbuilding on top. You build the puzzle deck, then use it to hit each stage target.
If you want more depth
Dreamcards — $8.49, 99% rated
A deckbuilder where deck construction happens during the fight as well as before it.
Sephiria — $14.99
From the Dungreed team. Action roguelite where arranging artifacts in your inventory is itself part of the build.
Echoes of Mystralia — $19.99
You craft the spells rather than picking them, and refine those combinations across runs.
What actually made the formula work
It is worth being precise, because a lot of imitators miss it. The appeal is not the auto-attacking. It is that power scaling outpaces difficulty scaling for a while, so there is a window in every run where you feel genuinely unstoppable — then the game catches up.
Games that copy the surface without that curve feel flat. The ones on this list, including the ones that changed genre entirely, kept the curve.
One more thing worth knowing: Vampire Survivors itself launched on itch.io before Steam. Our guide to itch.io covers where the next one is likely to come from.
Frequently asked questions
What game is most like Vampire Survivors?
Megabonk is the closest large-scale successor with over 105,000 reviews. HoloCure is the best free option at 99% positive from 40,681 reviews.
Are there free games like Vampire Survivors?
Yes. HoloCure is completely free and holds a 99% rating across 40,681 reviews, built explicitly on the Vampire Survivors and Magic Survival formula.
What is a bullet heaven game?
A genre where your character attacks automatically while you focus on movement and upgrade choices, facing escalating enemy hordes. Vampire Survivors popularised it.
Recently added this week
Pickle Pete — $4.95
You play a battle-hardened pickle. The distinguishing feature is a roster of 30+ bosses across biomes, giving each run a destination rather than just a survival timer.
