The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III

I have a soft spot for studios that build their own weird corner of genre fiction and actually commit to it, and NeocoreGames' Borgovia - that steampunk-laced, monster-infested parody of 19th-century Eastern Europe - is genuinely one of the more distinctive settings the ARPG genre produced in the mid-2010s. Van Helsing III is the trilogy's finale, and the truth is it arrives with more heart than craft. The gothic atmosphere holds, the banter between Van Helsing and his spectral companion Katarina still crackles, and there are stretches where the absurdist writing - demonic circus, Monty Python-quoting Minotaur, a vampire jailed for tax evasion - reminds you why this series found an audience in the first place. If you've invested in the first two games, the payoff of finally learning the full story of Katarina's past, and the resolution of the Prisoner Seven betrayal, lands with real weight. On the mechanical side, the game offers six distinct classes to choose from. The Protector is a plate-armored sword-and-shield bruiser, the Bounty Hunter a physical-damage specialist who uses mechanical seekers and decoys to mark targets from range, the Phlogistoneer pilots an exoskeleton suit built on weird science, the Constructor summons mechanical allies and operates as a sort of turret-engineer hybrid, the Umbralist is a stealth-and-twin-blade rogue, and the Elementalist channels long-range spell trees across fire, frost, and lightning. On paper that roster is generous. In practice, class balance is uneven - the Elementalist in particular can mow through enemy groups in ways that suggest the tuning was never quite finished. Active skills can be upgraded to level 15 and modified with perks, and both Van Helsing and Katarina have stat tracks across Body, Dexterity, and Willpower. There is real depth here, just rougher than its predecessors. Item sets were removed entirely, the level cap was reduced, and the skill trees are simplified compared to Van Helsing II. Ranged targeting also has a frustrating habit of locking onto the wrong enemy at the worst moments. The story pacing is the trilogy's best, opening with a short tutorial and side quests immediately rather than the slow burns that hurt the earlier entries. Level design across the ruins of Borgovia shows genuine variety, though the more linear layouts can get you cornered in uncomfortable ways when enemy aura effects start overlapping. Co-op support for up to four players and tower-defense sequences at Van Helsing's lair add texture if you can pull friends in. Solo, the campaign is short enough to feel a little undercooked for a trilogy conclusion. A Metacritic score of 64 reflects a divided critical reception: the foundation works, the world is charming, but there is a persistent sense that developer attention had drifted elsewhere before this shipped. Who is this for, then? Trilogy completionists get a genuine, sometimes touching narrative close. ARPG tourists who haven't played the first two will find a competent but unremarkable dungeon-crawler with a great aesthetic and some sharp writing buried in the clutter. The Borgovia setting does things with gothic-steampunk atmosphere that bigger-budget genre entries rarely attempt, and that still counts for something. Just go in knowing this is comfort food, not a genre landmark.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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