izigame.me

I've played this game for 26 hours in the past two days.
TL;DR; It's good.
A bit of background on how I am currently playing the game:
I am currently playing it on a solo-duo official PVP server. When you die you lose all the resources you had on you but not the gear, I understand that there's a full loot drop mode as well, maybe not available for solo-duo server, i've only seen that option for the 4 man group servers. PVE servers are also available for those not interested in PVP.
Who am I?
I'm Alex and I love survival games. I have around 4.5k hours in Rust and have dabbled in Albion, Last Oasis, Valheim, Conan Exiles and Subnautica. If you like survival games, this review is for you.
What kind of game is it?
A top down RPG survival game with building/raiding mechanics. You are a Vampire that grows in power by improving the gear you are wearing - there is no EXP bar and your level is dictated by your gear score. From what I've observed, gear score is not that important in PVP but is important in PVE.
In order to advance through the game you have to unlock knowledge either by getting books, random research (it's not as bad as it sounds) or tracking bosses, fighting them and then absorbing their powers.
Character build variety:
There's plenty and since the game just came out there is currently no meta that I have observed.
Depending on the type of weapon you have (sword, axes, mace, spear, reaper, slashers/dual blades or crossbow) and the material the weapon is made out of (bone, copper, iron - and i don't know what comes next) you will have between 0 and 2 abilities that you can cast with it. Cooldowns are shared but you can cast ability 1 with one weapon, swap to another and cast ability 2.
As you defeat more bosses you will unlock vampiric abilities or spells. You can equip a type of dash, two spells and one ultimate at any given time. You can swap these out freely but you can't do so while in combat.
There are currently 5 schools of magic: Blood, Unholy, Illusion, Chaos and Frost. Each offer 5 unique spells, a type of dash and an ultimate ability.
Equipment doesn't seem to vary a lot, you can wear items on chest, hands, legs, feet, trinket and cloak. There's an extra slot for a cosmetic head item, I have yet to find head pieces that grant stats. The only place where you have some wiggle room in terms of build is your jewelry slot, there are items geared towards survival, sustain, damage and spell power.
In addition to this, there's blood. Each living mob on the map has a type: Creature, Rogue, Warrior, Brute, Scholar and Worker. Depending on the blood type and blood level (this is randomized per mob from 1 to 100% and the deeper you go into the map the more common it is to find higher blood levels), you will get between 1 and 5 different bonuses. You can factor this in to your build. As time goes by your blood level will go down and you will have to find a new target to feed on. You can also use this blood to heal - this makes you immobile and vulnerable to attacks.
PVP:
It's phenomenal. Getting ganked is usually a death sentence but there are ways of avoiding combat while outnumbered. Later on you might be able to win 1v2 fights but at the start it's a bit hard.
You can't really heal while in combat, the amount of health you can fully heal goes down as you take damage and while in combat you are flagged and can't heal above that threshold.
Fighting feels very responsive and most spells need to be targeted and therefore can be dodged.
PVE:
Awesome! Mobs don't seem to be re-skinned versions and the higher their level, the more abilities they have. You will be killing NPCs a lot and honestly, running into a village and slaughtering all the innocent civilians running around and screaming "VAMPIRE!" is very satisfying.
Building:
You're fairly limited in creativity but there are a lot of cosmetic items that make up for the fact that you can't build vertically. Depending on what type of player you are (you know, RUST PTSD or PVE expert) you'll either build a "Fuck you, here's a door on each tile base" or "Look at my magnificent castle".
Raiding:
To be honest, I have not yet found it rewarding. It's expensive and if you want someone out for good it will cost a lot of resources as each castle has a heart and to take over that heart you will have to pay a big amount of resources.
On official servers there's a raiding window in place, you can only raid in the afternoon (4pm to 10pm GMT).
Wrapping things up.
Is it Valheim? No. Is it a Hack&Slash? Maybe. Is it Albion? No.
The game has a unique setting and for an Early Access title it's totally worth the money as there is plenty of content and tech to unlock.