Vampire Survivor The new 0.10.0 update adds a cheat menu and after using it to unlock some things I was stuck on, I really wish more games included one.
Vampire Survivor, if you haven’t heard of it, is an adorable game about leveling up and destroying literally thousands of monsters in a single playthrough. I would describe it as roguelike; You choose a starting character with specific attributes and a specific weapon, and you level up that weapon, other weapons, and other items while collecting gems by defeating enemies. Your weapons fire automatically, so your main concern is gaining experience and items while dodging baddies.
Launching in Early Access on Steam late last year, the game has received regular updates adding things like new characters, weapons, power-ups, stages, and special items, although you usually have to unlock them by meeting certain requirements. The game is an absolute blast, but unlocking everything can be challenging and time-consuming. I’ve already invested 40 hours Vampire Survivor, but the in-game menu tells me I have 26 more things to unlock. Sometimes when I look at this list I get demotivated and decide to play something else.
The new cheats menu – called the “Secrets” menu in the game – could solve this demotivation in a big way. It accepts codes (“Spells”) to unlock characters, special items (“Relics”), and stages, meaning I can now choose what I want to unlock myself and what I just want to cheat for. I still want to unlock most things by actually completing the requirements, but there are a few things I just didn’t want to bother with, and thanks to this Secrets menu, I can easily get what I’m less interested in.
The developers of Vampire Survivor also decided to make the Secrets menu its own unlockable. You won’t be able to find the item that unlocks it until you understand the game well and have already unlocked a few other things. If you’ve gotten this far, I’d argue that you get to choose what you cheat for, and I wish other games would take a similar approach.
I play death stranding right now, and while I love the story, the moment-by-moment gameplay is so slow. I wish I could cheat on a truck with infinite health, battery, and some sort of hover ability so I could easily make deliveries and see through the game’s story, but I think I’ll have to endure hours of frustrating traversal to learn what’s next to Sam Porter Bridges happened.
Vampire Survivor The Secrets menu doesn’t just open up unlockables; There’s also a charm to rotate the UI, which I guess is silly even though it doesn’t sound like fun to use at all. In the 0.10.0 patch notes, the developers say they are working on more spells, so hopefully more crazy ideas will come. (Big Head mode maybe?) I’m not going to reveal how to unlock the Secrets menu or which codes do what, but if you’re curious, here’s a GameFAQs guide.
Vampire Survivor is available in Early Access on Steam for $3. It generally works pretty well on Steam Deck where it is one of the most popular games on the platformalthough I couldn’t enter cheat code spells on the handheld gaming PC – I had to enter the codes on my MacBook Air.