This guide will teach you all there is about the various hidden, bonus, and challenge stages in Vampire Survivors.
Special Stages is an umbrella term for bonus, challenge, and hidden stages featured in Vampire Survivors. Currently, there are five of these stages available for play.
The Special Stages are generally unlocked by unlocking Hyper Mode for the four normal stages. You unlock Hyper Mode by defeating the following bosses at the 25th-minute mark in the normal stages:
- Mad Forest: Giant Blue Venus
- Inlaid Library: Nesuferit
- Dairy Plant: Sword Guardian
- Gallo Tower: Giant Enemy Crab
List of Special Stages:
- Il Molise
- Moongolow
- Hidden Ground
- Green Acres
- The Bone Zone
Il Molise
Il Molise is the first bonus stage, unlocked by unlocking Hyper Mode for one of the normal stages. You unlock Hyper Mode for each stage by defeating a special boss that spawns at the 25th minute mark. In the Mad Forest, for example, that’s the Giant Blue Venus.
Il Molise is a fairly easy and straightforward stage. Nearly all of the enemies you will face are stationary plants. As the game goes on, some of the plants are a little tankier, but they won’t damage you unless you walk into them. They continuously spawn as you kill them, so your screen is always full of monsters. Weapons that deal area-of-effect are therefore very efficient in this stage.
At the 9-, 10-, 11- and 13-minute marks actual moving bosses will spawn and drop treasure chests so you may evolve your weapons. At the 15th minute mark, Death will spawn and kill you.
Moongolow
Moongolow is another Bonus Stage that is unlocked once you unlock Hyper Mode for the four normal stages.
Moongolow has a few unique features. The first is the Merchant. The Merchant sells special weapons, Golden Eggs, and the Glass Vizard relic for gold coins. This Relic unlocks the Merchant for all other stages. The Golden Egg is an item that permanently increases a random stat on the player’s current character by a small amount. It can be purchased repetitively for 10,000 coins. Once you’ve bought all the characters and all the PowerUps, this is where your money will go.
The second unique feature is the sheer number of Stage Items. All sixteen passive items, excluding Torrona’s Box, spawn at the start of your run.
Moonogolow is not very challenging, and your goal is to survive for just 15 minutes. At which point, your character will be teleported to a secondary, secret level – The Hidden Ground.
Hidden Ground
The Hidden Ground is unlocked and automatically entered after reaching 15 minutes in Moongolow for the first time. Upon entering the stage the player loses their Revivals, Armor, MoveSpeed, Growth, Arcana, passive items, and weapons, except their starting weapon.
The stage consists of a fairly narrow hallway leading you to the East. Enemies spawn immediately and attack you, but there’s not a lot of room for you to dodge. You can kill the enemies, but it is impossible to level up in this level. On the stage, there are light sources that you can destroy to earn coins and possibly Floor Chicken for healing. The player must run through the corridors and pick up the Rosary at the end of it.
If you die before you reach the Rosary, you are sent back to the Main Menu. However, Hidden Ground is now unlocked and can be selected again until you beat it. We suggest grabbing a character with area-of-effect damage (Suor Clerici or Porta Ladonna) or a character that is fast (Krochi Freetto, Poppea Pecorina, or Giovanna Grana) to beat this level.
Once you finally succeed, you will unlock the fifth normal stage, Cappella Magna. Furthermore, you will collect the Yellow Sign, a relic that will unlock the hidden passive items, Silver Ring, Gold Ring, Metaglio Left, and Metaglio Right.
Green Acres
Green Acres is the first challenge stage in Vampire Survivors, and it’s unlocked by unlocking Hyper Mode for two normal stages.
This stage is very similar to the Mad Forest, but even Mad Forest on Hyper mode is easier than the normal mode of Green Acres. The enemies of this stage are also not like ordinary Mad Forest enemies but are instead selected at random across all unlocked maps.
The Bone Zone
The Bone Zone is the second challenge map. It is unlocked by unlocked Hyper Mode for 3 normal stages.
Currently, this is easily the most challenging of all the Vampire Survivors levels. There are two uniquely difficult features in this stage. First, there are no item drops at this stage. You will still get experience gems, coins, and treasure chests, of course, but you cannot get items such as the Magnet, Floor Chicken or Rosary. This means that you will essentially need to avoid all damage and projectiles or get yourself some healing through Garlic. The second aspect of the stage which makes it so difficult is that enemies in this mode get progressively stronger with each minute. Every minute the enemies’ health and speed scale by 0.3 and 0.05 respectively, without a cap.
To succeed in the Bone Zone, you will want to pick a character with high movement speed and a good starting weapon. Dommario, who is normally a top-tier pick, will struggle greatly due to his -40% move speed. Pugnala Provola, Mortaccio and Yatta Cavallo will have an easier time.
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Vampire Survivors is available to play on Steam.