By Neil Merrett
Vampire Survivors: Operation Guns (DLC), released on Nintendo Switch in 2024, developed by Poncle
In this age of Metaverse design, what would it mean to take your favourite digital weapon into other games? If the new DLC for Vampire Survivors is anything to go by, the answer will depend entirely on the type of game you want to bring it into. Yet it’s good to see there might be some role for iconic 8-bit weapons outside of the original run and gun shooters.
If one subscribes to the concept of videogame design as art, then there is probably something to be said for the brilliance of great videogame weapons.
At one end of the spectrum, modern videogames – through the introduction of loot mechanics and ‘rolling’ – can reward players with experimenting with customising specific aspects of a weapon. The Destiny series, Anthem or a twin stick shooter such as Alienation all allowed players to endlessly replay the game in the hope of uncovering and customising ever more powerful weapons that can be molded to perfectly compliment a player’s style with patience.
In the case of unlocking guns and blades with random properties, there can be quite a thrill to persevering with a game and actually being randomly awarded with a dream weapon that turns out to be a devastating hybrid of assault rifle and grenade launcher for battling through future playthroughs.
However, some game weapons are so specifically designed for the mechanics of a game – that they become a defining part of that experience.
The 8-bit shooter classic Contra gave the player the chance to shoot down a limited number of weapon types from blimps that might actually benefit, or even hinder their specific way of playing a game. Sometimes, a player might find themselves making great progress through Contra’s 2D platform sections using a rapid fire machine gun, only to inadvertently be given a laser that creates its own gameplay challenge in terms of the level of precision a player must adopt in their targeting while trying to gun down and dodging an onslaught of enemies.
A laser can be a powerful weapon, provided a player can hit the targets.
Thank heavens then that Capcom thought of adding a ‘spread gun’ as another option for getting the player through Contra. Compared to the intense, but limited range of fire available via the game’s laser, the spread gun fires a shotgun-esque arc of fire that expands and spreads across the screen when fired. With enough hammering of the fire button, the player is able to fill the screen with a spread of red balls of death that can cover significant areas of the screen – thus allowing the player to try and find a nice little nook on the screen to duck and take cover in while blowing away errant enemies.
On both a visual and gameplay level, the spread gun is a tremendous boon for Contra players looking to find the odd moment of respite during complex boss battles or when trying to dodge a collision with an enemy that will cost them a precious life.
It’s a weapon, that it is fair to say, is almost exclusively useful for a certain type of 2D shooter such as Contra or the arcade classic, Midnight Resistance. This was a game that adopted similar mechanics and weapons to contra, while also letting the player crawl and shoot, and even briefly just threaten to run over enemies in a jeep.
It’s a pleasant surprise to therefore find the Contra spread gun weapon finding an additional usefulness and life in a new DLC package for Vampire Survivors.
The potential usefulness of a wide-reaching weapon such as the spread gun is not surprising for a game that is built around aiming to overwhelm the player with a 360 degree onslaught of thousands of enemies in any given level.
In this sense, some of the weapons, characters and visual flourishes of a game series such as Contra lend themselves to Vampire Survivors unique take on working to overpower a player as quickly as possible before they are simply swarmed by legions of the undead or various alien mutants.
Vampire Survivors x Contra
The Vampire Survivors x Contra mashup is not the first time that developers such as Konami or Capcom have opted to let their IP and storied series to become paid content for more modern gaming experiences.
Last year, weapons, characters and even levels from the Castlevania series found themselves directly integrated into the Roguelike adventure game Dead Cells.
This was on obvious partnership in hindsight for a game that is very much a spiritual successor to the Castelvania series with its focus on frenetic action and customising weapon setups to battle through gothic monster infested ramparts and castles.
But Vampire Survivors is in many ways a much more unique prospect and genre shift for bringing weapons across from an iconic 2D platformer game that is seen more as a nostalgic classic, than a thriving modern franchise.
These are two games that represent very different genres – yet the inclusion of the spread gun in Vampire Survivors is an effective fit for a game about maximising your damage output to absurd levels.
A spread gun and bible combo
On its own, the spread shot may still be rather limited than a powered up array of weaponised bibles that can eventually spin around the player like some razor sharp-ring of death. Yet combined with the opportunity to power up grenades and other weaponry available in Vampire Survivors’ – it fits right into the game.
It’s nostalgia-really, rather than drastically changing the way that Vampire Survivors is played. In the end, the aim is to outpower the enemy before the player can be overcome by an overgrowing army of thousands of baddies.
But mixed with he looks and sounds of Contra, or the robotic heroes of Probotector – as the game was initially known in European markets to offset concerns about murdering humanoids – it’s a pleasant addition to a sometimes almost zen videogame straddling the fine line of utter chaos and ordered simulated violence.
Contra is a pretty good fit alongside other DLC additions to the game including the murder mystery-esque anti-party game, party game Among Us.
In the light of ‘metaverse’ game design and a potentially endless team of DLC and patches to expand and reinvigorate games, there is huge potential and commercial possibility to dig-up and let the player implement all kinds of mad and beloved videogame weaponry into other titles.
As ever, whether this can be done successfully and satisfying will be down to how developers and programmers adapt these tools and pieces of code to fit the unique requirements of different game worlds.
After all, where’s the fun in bringing back a trusty old ‘Super Shotgun’ that got the player through a decades-old shooter if it fails to deliver a satisfying gameplay experience.
In the end, we have to make nostalgia fit into the realities and constraints of the modern realities of gaming – even if this means making compromises or accepting that videogames, much like the times we live in, change.
There’s a lot consider when hurling our treasured memories and experiences into the ‘modern’. Sometimes nostalgia has to be understood in the unique context of the time, place and software and hardware limitations of the era that something originated.
But when it’s done right – there is a lot of good that can be learnt from a classic shooter or genre.
Who knows what might be next for some of gaming’s classic power-ups and items. There is huge potential for ‘pac-pellets’, super mushrooms and even the grenade launching shotgun from the 2016 Doom remake to suddenly crop-up in some indie classic.
It’s also alright for them to remain in their brilliant original iterations.
If nothing else, it’s good to see that the spread gun still has its uses in 2024.
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