EvilVEvil Review – A Stake Through the Heart

Whenever I hear about a new co-op FPS coming out, I can’t help but feel a bit skeptical. Why? Well, just look at how bloated the market is. You really need to make an impactful impression to hook players and, most importantly, prevent it from sinking after launch. Still, when I heard about EvilVEvil, I was a bit intrigued. A new fast-paced co-op FPS game with vampires? What could go wrong? After playing it for a while, I can tell you this: this vampire is not worth waking it from its coffin.

EvilVEvil doesn’t take long to make you feel it’s following the footsteps of the now legendary Left 4 Dead. You have a cast of characters that go through several missions across different locations and follow an overarching story. Sadly, EvilVEvil loses track of its inspiration early on. Even during the tutorial, you can see that the experience is extremely shallow. It is plagued with generic enemies, a cast of characters with cliché personalities, and a gameplay that, despite its fast-paced approach, never managed to give me enough reasons to stick around.

Rough Awakening

You awaken as a vampire who has been asleep so long that the world is entirely modern and futuristic when you wake up. Your leader reveals that The Cult, ancient mortal enemies of vampires, are on a mission to eradicate your kind. Their plan involves reviving an Ancient Enemy using vampire genes and technology somehow. You choose between three edgy vampires: the leader-like bruiser vampire, the fan-serviceable assassin-like vampire, and the Spanish-speaking stereotypical vampire. I’d love to describe them in a deeper way, but that is as far as their personalities go.

Rather than saying whether the story was good or bad, I want to focus on the fact that the way it is delivered is ineffective. The storytelling time you get is when you’re inside a frantic match. The only crumbs you get are when your leader is narrating or explaining with the help of a small text box during the missions. The downside is that it appears right when you are in a fight while 20 enemies attack you simultaneously. I barely understood anything. It was hard to know what to do or why I had arrived at another scenario for the next mission.

I know this isn’t the first game that tries to deliver its plot while creatures jump at you from every direction. However, the downtime between objectives is almost nonexistent. It was too late when I wanted to immerse myself in the narrative. I was running mindlessly through the 11 missions EvilVEvil will have in its first season, hoping for something interesting to happen. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. The plot is extremely predictable, and by the third mission, you already know how it’ll end.

Frantically Shallow

EvilVEvil‘s gameplay can be summed up as a fast-paced, shoot-’em-up style, where you battle hordes of enemies that relentlessly pursue you through the level. If you are a fan of shooters, you will feel that you are in your element, but EvilVEvil has other mechanics. You have two weapon types, one with normal bullets and the other with the power of harmful UV rays; this is for enemies with shields and the undead-type monsters. Each weapon has its own ammunition, which you obtain after eliminating some enemies. Beyond that, each character has a unique melee weapon that aligns with their archetype. The Bruiser vampire has a sword, the Assassin a whip, and so on.

One of the game’s most enjoyable aspects is the array of powers at your disposal, which play a crucial role in tipping the balance of kills in your favor. According to the game, vampires can inherently glide and teleport to an area within their vision range. In addition to the three characters you can choose from, each one has their own special skills. For example, one throws a fireball to control masses of enemies, and another can create a shadow of herself that attacks three nearby enemies. Another system I enjoyed was one similar to V Rising, in which you can recover HP when you drink the blood of your enemies. In that area, EvilVEvil delivers on the whole “modern vampire” vibe.

Even so, sometimes the controls and camera are very sensitive, and although you can edit them, it is sometimes difficult to move. The maps differ and have different themes, such as a ship, the catacombs, and a super tech lab. Every scenario has more stages, so you see more of one area. Unfortunately, each level repeats the same structure. For example, you start on a new map with a task like eliminating specific targets, and the mission changes to kill enemies; then you change to another stage to do another two or three tasks, and then you go to the last stage to another similar objective.

Ultimately, I never felt excitement as I progressed through the stages, which is quite sad. EvilVEvil has some strong foundations. The setting seems interesting, the skills are engaging and fun to use, and the zones are well-designed. However, it felt as if the developers just threw random elements at each of these systems to see how much they could clutter one’s experience. I would’ve loved to see more enemies or even have more dynamic objectives, but it didn’t happen. And by the time things got interesting, I had already lost interest.

Inconsistent Horrors of the Night

The characters, as such, are not unique or endearing, but I liked the graphics that sometimes replicated the comic book style as in the Spider-Verse movies. The effects are sound, but sometimes, some enemies get confused with the environment; it also happens with some parts of the scenery. Beyond that, there were a few annoying visual effects, such as the one you get after biting an enemy that blurs your vision and becomes a bit headache-inducing after a while. These visual inconsistencies are troublesome and might prevent some from having an extended gameplay session.

The music follows a modern style, as EvilVEvil wanted to capture; I enjoyed it between the loading screens and the menu. Still, while you’re in battle, it becomes secondary because it prioritizes the sounds of gunshots and enemies. The sound effects are on point, which is expected for a co-op shooter. In that part, I praise the people behind the audio design, as both the effects and music are terrific.

Needs More Time in the Coffin

By the time I finished all the missions, I felt like EvilVEvil wanted to bombard me with whatever it had to keep me around, but it wasn’t enough. Instead of being an enjoyable, fast-paced experience, it is a cluttered mess that made me feel like I was on a faulty theme park ride, screaming to get off it. While this is only the game’s first season, it won’t leave a good impression on those looking for a new cooperative shooter.

Right now, EvilVEvil feels like an anemic vampire that isn’t ready to take on the night. Yet, there might be hope. Since it seems like it’ll go down the live service path, we’ve seen redemption stories in the past, so this game might still take that stake out of its chest and stand up strong. Still, there’s a lot of work to be done. Its forgettable plot and characters, cluttered gameplay systems, and visual inconsistencies are a few of the things it needs to fix before standing toe to toe against other big co-op FPS games.