Unlock these Vampire Crawlers upgrades first to blast through the hardest stages

Vampire Crawlers may be in a completely different genre than Vampire Survivors, but the progression path still has that signature Survivors DNA. With the right upgrades, you can become an unstoppable force of nature that shreds enemies like paper.

Picking the wrong upgrades can seriously slow you down in the early stages of Vampire Crawlers, though, so you should spend your hard-earned coins wisely. There's thankfully a refund button in the shop, but some of the game's best upgrades have to be unlocked the old-fashioned way. Here's what you should be chasing first as you dive into Vampire Crawlers' dungeons.

The best Crawlers to start with

Crawlers are the cornerstone of your build. Broken runs and crazy stats start with them, so filling the empty seats at the Inn should be your number one priority when starting out. You can have a great time with any of the game's characters, but there are two Crawlers in particular that you should rush toward.

Pasqualina Belpaese is the first truly broken Crawler you can recruit, increasing your hand size when purple cards are played and increasing your Area stat whenever her Crawler card is played.

To get Pasqualina, you need to reach level 20 with Imelda Belpaese on the Inlaid Library stage. You'll unlock Imelda after your first run in the Mad Forest—the very first stage—so you can get Pasqualina in under an hour if you're just starting out.

Pasqualina's whole kit is designed around crowd control, clearing huge waves of enemies with ever-increasing splash damage. Since she boosts your hand size when purple cards are played, you can stuff your deck with a bunch of cheap cards that you can spam to easily clear encounters. Add in a few stronger cards with combo potential to take out bosses and you've got a bulletproof plan of attack!

Next up on the priority list is Gennaro Belpaese, another broken Crawler who overwhelms enemies by increasing your Amount stat instead of Area. He also deals bonus damage whenever red cards are played, making Gennaro a very easy character to win with.

To unlock Gennaro, you have to defeat the Mantichana in the Mad Forest. The Mantichana is the final boss of the Mad Forest stage, so you have to win a full run to add Gennaro to your roster.

Gennaro is all about spamming low-cost cards and filling the screen with a bunch of random attacks. He gets Knife and Spinach cards in his starting deck, so spam Knives and combo with Spinach to boost your Might and make the Knives even stronger. Might also affects Gennaro's bonus damage from red cards, so all these little buffs start to add up fast. Slotting Gems onto those Knife cards will only ramp up the chaos, too.

Splurge on these upgrades at the shop

A returning feature from Vampire Survivors, the shop lets you spend coins to unlock permanent stat upgrades that'll help you survive harder stages. The same upgrades from Vampire Survivors are sold in Vampire Crawlers, but the best game plan is a bit different here.

The first thing you absolutely must buy in Vampire Crawlers is the Recovery upgrade, which restores one HP after every encounter for only 500 coins. The second and third upgrade levels get pretty expensive, so you can hold off on those for now.

The Reroll upgrade is just as important as Recovery—if not more. For only 250 coins, you can unlock the ability to reroll rewards so you can kickstart honing your build. The next upgrade levels are fairly cheap, but you should be fine with just one level at the start of the game.

Next up, you should buy one or two levels of the Duration upgrade. Crawler buffs are so important to the best builds, so you want to maximize the amount of time they're active. It's another cheap upgrade, so you can buy it after just a few runs.

After that, you should buy the first Might and Luck upgrades. They'll increase your stats by 20%, which is a huge boon when you're just starting out. These upgrades will carry you through the early stages of the game, letting you save up coins for the more expensive stuff like armor and Growth.

Add an Arcana to your kit

The Fortune Teller's Arcana tent is a huge upgrade that can drastically improve your builds, but you can easily miss it if you choose the wrong dungeons.

To unlock the Fortune Teller's tent, you need to find the Polentir Relic in the Furious Forest stage. It may seem tempting to go straight to the Inlaid Library after clearing the Mad Forest, but doubling down and trying to clear the harder Furious Forest is worth the effort. After exploring the Furious Forest for a while, the Polentir will eventually drop.

The Fortune Teller's tent lets you equip an Arcana, which provides a big passive buff of your choosing. These are unlocked just like weapons and items, and you can check the required challenges to unlock new Arcanas by hovering over each card.

One of the best Arcanas is Over the Top, which returns a Crawler to the top of your deck once they leave. You can unlock it by playing Crawler cards 100 times, so you'll end up with it sooner or later after a few runs. With Over the Top equipped, you can rack up constant bonus damage with a Crawler like Gennaro or gain a ton of XP with a character like Imelda.

Another strong early-game Arcana is Your Shield My Liege, which lets you keep armor between turns. It unlocks after you've gained 2,000 armor over the course of your adventures. With this Arcana, you can focus entirely on offense and build up armor across encounters over time. There's even a Gem that deals your armor value as damage, so slotting that into a cheap card is an easy path to victory.

Nab these Relics ASAP

Relics are game-changing passive upgrades that unlock new gameplay features in Vampire Crawlers. You'll get some great ones like the Combo Stack and Gem Hammer in the tutorial, but the best ones are hidden in harder dungeons.

As mentioned above, the Polentir should be your first priority once you're out of the Vampire Crawlers tutorial. You'll find it on the Furious Forest stage, accessible after clearing the Mad Forest for the first time. It unlocks the Fortune Teller's tent and the Arcana system.

The Grim Grimoire is another early-game priority. Found in the Library West Wing, it gives you a list of discovered weapon evolutions so you can keep track of the items you need in order to get the strongest cards. You can access the Library West Wing after clearing the Inlaid Library for the first time.

You should also try to clear the Teeny Bridge as soon as possible. It's a tough, combat-centric dungeon that pits you against a long line of enemies, but the reward is the Stardust Anvil. This Relic unlocks the Blacksmith's Shop, which lets you add gem slots to cards in your deck. This is the last major upgrade you'll get for the Village, so don't neglect this dungeon!