The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II: Ink Hunt (DLC)

I want to be honest about the first hour: it is rough. Van Helsing II drops you mid-sentence into a resistance war, wobbles its camera through exposition-heavy cutscenes, and buries you under skill trees before you have had a chance to care about any of it. Stick through it anyway. The game that opens up on the other side of that clunky threshold is a genuinely layered action RPG with more going on than its budget-tier reputation suggests. The three classes available from the start, the Hunter, the Thaumaturge, and the Arcane Mechanic, are more flexible than they sound on paper. NeocoreGames deliberately kept class boundaries porous, so a Hunter can drift toward spellcasting, or lean into a glass-cannon ranged build, without the game punishing you for it. The Thaumaturge's elemental bolt-slinging feels satisfying in the middle chapters when enemy density peaks, and the Arcane Mechanic's turret-and-gadget playstyle is a genuine change of pace for anyone who usually runs melee-first. On top of your own skill trees, Lady Katarina, your ghostly companion, has two trees of her own and can be directed toward melee support, ranged fire, or a damage-absorb role. Levelling her up in tandem with your character gives the whole progression loop a pleasing dual rhythm. The secret lair sitting at the heart of the campaign is the structural piece that elevates Van Helsing II above a simple wave-clear grinder. From it you marshal resistance commanders and send them on tactical missions, manage troop equipment, craft and forge gear through a fragmentation system that lets you shatter artifacts into magical runes and slot them onto new items, and even raise and enhance a Chimera creature you can summon into combat. The extended tower defence mode returns with up to seven optional levels and noticeably better map design than in the first game. None of these systems are essential, but they accumulate into something that rewards completionists and stat-lovers considerably. The rage system, which lets you charge up to three PowerUp modifiers across your eight active skills, adds a welcome layer of timing to what could otherwise be mindless clicking. Where the game stumbles is familiar territory for the genre. Combat feedback lacks impact; enemies frequently feel like damage sponges rather than threats with personality, and the "difficulty" setting mostly means more of them rushing you at once. Multiplayer co-op for up to four players exists, but community reports have flagged persistent bugs and connectivity issues that have never been fully resolved, so I would not bank on that being the draw. The story, too, never quite earns its own mythology. The snarky banter between Van Helsing and Katarina is charming in small doses, but the pop culture references land awkwardly against the otherwise grim-industrial setting, and the motivations of the broader resistance plot remain thin throughout. If you are here for narrative, this is not that game. For genre fans, though, particularly anyone who has finished Torchlight 2 or exhausted a Diablo season and wants something with its own flavour, Van Helsing II delivers. The gothic-steampunk world of Borgova has a genuinely distinctive atmosphere, the lair adds a light strategy heartbeat between dungeon runs, and the class customisation has enough depth to support multiple playthroughs. Accept the slow opening, manage your expectations around the story, and it settles into one of the more comfortable action RPGs from that mid-2010s indie wave. Kai, Scout Team

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