Great story, characters and lore
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews
“The companions are written beautifully - incredible backstories, real tragedies, actual thematic weight.”
Steam review · 46 h played ↗
CODE VEIN
Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.
Very Positive · 83%Very Positive · 83%Bandai Namco Studios2019Souls-like · Action RPG · JRPG
The verdict
An anime-styled, beginner-friendly soulslike with a superb character creator, flexible Blood Code builds and a helpful AI partner. Skip it if you want tight combat or hate maze-like levels.
Great for
Anime fans and soulslike newcomers who love character customization, build experimenting and story
Main risk
Clunky combat, maze-like repetitive levels (the Cathedral) and launch or co-op bugs on newer PCs
What changed in the last 30 days
85 recent reviews
Recent negatives cite 5-10 minute boot times, crashes and a server/login error, plus maze levels and a lingering Cathedral. Likely tied to the Code Vein 2 launch drawing comparisons; moderately sure.
85 recent reviews
What players love
Stylish anime vampire aesthetic and soundtrack
Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews
“The most epic soundtrack I've ever heard in my life.”
Steam review · 0.3 h played ↗
Excellent character creator
Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews
“The real game was the character creator all along. It is among the best I have seen, and I wish more games learned from this one in that regard.”
Steam review · 33.6 h played ↗
Flexible Blood Code builds
Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews
“you can swap classes on the fly and experiment with builds without rerolling a character.”
Steam review · 7.6 h played ↗
Accessible entry to soulslikes
Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews
“Code Vein feels very easy for a non souls-like player to pick up and try without being punished.”
Steam review · 49.2 h played ↗
Approachable, helpful AI companion
Mentioned in ~1 in 8 positive reviews
“The AI partner draws aggro and revives you, making bosses very easy but still fun.”
Steam review · 9 h played ↗
What players complain about
Confusing, repetitive level design
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews
“The level designs are terrible, tedious, mazes. No seriously whoever designed the Cathedral of the Sacred Blood should fook right off.”
Steam review · 11.8 h played ↗
Clunky, floaty combat with stunlocks
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“The combat feels like I'm hitting enemies with a wet noodle.”
Steam review · 13.5 h played ↗
Slow launch, crashes and Linux problems
Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews
“the game takes 10 minutes to launch after you hit play on steam, all loading times are WAY longer than they are supposed to be”
Steam review · 1.4 h played ↗
Repetitive enemies and bosses
Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews
“There are, what feels like, five different standard enemies that just keep repeating themselves.”
Steam review · 20.8 h played ↗
Slow, boring story delivery
Mentioned in ~1 in 11 negative reviews
“Long cutscenes and awful memories in which you slow walk through a PowerPoint presentation.”
Steam review · 22.3 h played ↗
Broken, limited co-op
Mentioned in ~1 in 13 negative reviews
“Do not purchase if you have intent of playing multiplayer as coop has been broken for years for some users.”
Steam review · 62.7 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: Playable35 GB
Minimum
OSWindows 7 SP1 or Windows 10 (64-bit)
ProcessorIntel Core i5-2300
Memory6 GB RAM
GraphicsGeForce GTX 760 or Radeon HD 7850
Storage35 GB available space
Recommended
OSWindows 7 SP1 or Windows 10 (64-bit)
ProcessorIntel Core i5-7400 or AMD Ryzen 3 2200G
Memory8 GB RAM
GraphicsGeForce GTX 960 or Radeon R9 380X
Storage35 GB available space
OSWindows 7 SP1 or Windows 10 (64-bit)
ProcessorIntel Core i5-2300
Memory6 GB RAM
GraphicsGeForce GTX 760 or Radeon HD 7850
Storage35 GB available space
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