Vampire Survivors developer Poncle has announced a new game, Vampire Crawlers, and while it has no release date yet, one of the game’s developers is keen for it to avoid GTA 6.
Poncle’s Luca Galante told GameSpot that he originally wanted to launch Vampire Crawlers in 2025, but this proved unrealistic after the studio decided to add more deckbuilding elements. Adding this feature pushed the release of Vampire Crawlers to 2026, which is also when GTA 6 is launching.
Rockstar’s highly anticipated open-world game debuts on November 19, 2026, and for now, Galante is “not 100% sure” when he wants to bring Vampire Crawlers to market. But he hopes to avoid releasing the game near the release of GTA 6.
“‘I’m trying to avoid the Grand Theft Auto VI window. Not because the game is competing with GTA VI, but because the whole world is going to compete against GTA VI,” he said.
Vampire Crawlers probably won’t be the only game looking to launch sometime other than when GTA 6 comes out. The game is so highly anticipated that some think it will “blot out the sun” upon release, and that could spell trouble for other games releasing close to it. One publisher isn’t afraid, though, as Devolver has pledged to launch a game on the same day as GTA 6.
As for Poncle’s decision to add more deckbuilding elements to Vampire Crawlers, Galante said feedback showed that the game lacked depth.
“I realized that there were expectations. When you’re playing a card game, well, by now it’s a genre that’s so well-established that people have a lot of expectations,” he said. “They immediately expect to have a deckbuilding element that has a lot of depth. And so that’s the element I decided needed to be revamped–that needed to deliver from the get-go. It’s something that should be at the core of the experience.”
“Adding that big feature pushed our release date to next year.”
For more, check out GameSpot’s full interview with Galante and our hands-on preview of Vampire Crawlers.
Vampire Crawlers is set to release on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC, and mobile in 2026. Poncle also confirmed that the game will be coming to Xbox Game Pass day one.
