The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is an action role-playing game where one plays as the son of the legendary Arthur Van Helsing, a vampire hunter continuing his father's work. The story follows ideas from Bram Stoker's tale Dracula but it is set in the fictionalized 19th century East European kingdom of Borgovia. The game provides a gothic and steam punk aesthetic with a blend of monsters, magic and weird technology.

Understanding the gameplay requires looking at the common elements of Diablo-inspired games; these include exploring maps, destroying mobs of increasingly difficult enemies, finding chests and gathering loot, all while continuously upgrading your armory and improving your character. The player explores maps that are predetermined including the position of enemies and points of interest, although treasure chest items and enemy dropped loot are still random. Like Sacred the game also includes various upgradable skills (spells) that can be used during combat, but have a cool-down time between uses.

Following cues from other games like NetHack and Torchlight II, the main character is provided with a companion that fights along side during the adventure. The companion is the ghost of Lady Katarina - a noble of Borgovia - who provides quite a bit of banter between herself and Van Helsing, advancing the story while providing a new dimension to this style of game.

The game also provides a few less common features. For example, it has a power-up system where all active skills have 3 modifiers, called PowerUps. They are charged from Rage Points that are gained as enemies are eliminated. Additionally, the player is awarded perks which can be activated as the player gains reputation points by noteworthy accomplishments like eliminating an infamous nemesis.

The game provides both single-player and multiplayer options; the multiplayer component is a cooperative campaign for up to 4 players.