DISCLAIMER:
This review was written after finishing the game on brutal difficulty with one friend, and does not encompass the PvP experience. This review contains spoilers about the progression system and mechanics.

V Rising starts really strong with satisfying player progression and an intrigueing world but fails to deliver on its promises in the later stages of the game.

The game follows a satisfying gameplay loop consisting of constructing new Gear and Crafting Stations, killing Bosses with your newly acquired gear, and progressing to new areas. Especially in the early game, this loop feels really satisfying and rewarding, constantly drip-feeding you new gear and supplying you with constant dopamine after killing bosses.
The bosses in the early game are neither difficult nor do they feature elaborate mechanics, but they give you a good introduction to the game with your limited early game options.

The midgame and consequently the lategame are divided by new reasearch materials. While you were still farming paper in the early game you went on to farm scrolls in the midgame. The whole research system seems rather frustrating because it is really RNG-based. You just have to hope that you get the item you are looking for through a random drop or hit in in your rng draw on your research equipment. This could be change by giving you the option to choose what you spent your research material on. Atleast compared to the early access version, the system got a major upgrade by not having the crafting station that lets you refine your research materials be locked behind said rng mechanic. All in all, the system was tedious in stretches, but never so tedious as to annoy outright.

All of V Risings progression systems start to brake down around this point; what was once a satisfying gameplay loop turns into a slog, and every systems RNG elements are more and more pronounced. The system does not allow for a lot of flexibility when it comes to weapon choices; you upgrade your weapons with your old ones, so if you want to switch to a different weapon, you are forced into grinding out your gear again, but this time not inside a nice gameplay loop but outside of it making it feel more like work and less like an enjoyable experience. This tediousness reaches its maximum when farming Greater Stygian Shards (a late-game upgrade material), and you find yourself not in an interesting confrontation with a well-designed boss, but rather pitted against waves of trash mobs that seem to only exist to annoy you.

Away from these mechancial gripes with the game, it still delivers on graphical fidelity with a pretty and coherent artstyle and really good soundesign.

Sadly, we would not recommend this game if you intend to finish it.