The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II

Just shy of one year since the brilliant and perhaps overlooked monster-slaying, steampunk action role-playing game The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing was released, a sequel will soon be with us. Budapest-based developer NeocoreGames are promising a higher level cap, hundreds of skills and a huge selection of items to help battle your way through the fictional Eastern European kingdom of Borgovia, but is this enough to bring back fans of the first game for a second helping and lure in new players too?

This is very much a direct sequel to the first game, with a return of the young Van Helsing (son of the famous vampire hunter of the same name from Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula) and  witty ghost companion Katarina. At first glance you might struggle to spot any sign of change from last year’s release, but some subtle UI tweaks make keeping up with the different skills and abilities a little easier during battle. Having more skills to level makes combat a little more interesting, but ultimately it still boils down to rapidly clicking on the waves of grotesque monsters, hammering the spacebar to activate your ‘rage’ abilities and then collecting all the glorious loot that fallen enemies drop. The diversity of enemies is impressive. Within the boundaries of the map offered in the closed beta I had to blast my way through a menagerie of freakish ghouls and robotic murder machines. Depending on my character build, I could dispatch them from a distance with ranged attacks or run into the fray and swing big swords around, aided by special abilities like a temporary time-freeze or a health regenerating aura.

One of the things I enjoyed playing the first game was the character dialogue. Your spectral accomplice Katarina has quite the sharp tongue, making fun of NPCs along your journey and some pop culture references are sprinkled throughout. It’s great to see then that this has made a return for this game, a welcome sense of humour in an otherwise bleak and frightening world. Speaking of the world, Van Helsing II looks great, but having only had one map to explore it’s too early to say if we will see enough diversity in maps, since its predecessor was criticised for having repetitive environments. 

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II is shaping up to be another solid ARPG, and coming in at just $15 USD it is far cheaper than the recent Reaper of Souls expansion for Diablo III. Fans of the genre might opt for this cheaper, yet substantial alternative. With a release scheduled for April 17th, keep your eyes out for our review in the coming weeks where I will find out if this sequel has enough new content to keep you clicking for loot.

William Potter, NoobFeed (@Twitter)