How to defeat Red Death in Vampire Survivors

As soon as your run reaches 30 minutes in Vampire Survivors, all normal enemies will be erased, and something far more terrifying will take their place: Red Death, a monstrous foe with incredible speed, that deals 65,535 damage per second, and has 655,350 health for every level the player has earned. Looking at these stats alone, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Red Death was just a game over screen in fancy clothes. But there is a way to defeat Red Death in Vampire Survivors, if you know how to.

Doing so requires a lot of planning and preparation, so we’ve put together this handy guide to walk you through the process. Read on to learn how to take on Vampire Survivors’ most imposing challenge.

How to defeat Red Death in Vampire Survivors

Defeating Red Death: Prerequisites

Before you attempt to conquer Death itself, you’ll need to have a few things done first. You’ll must have the Clock Lancet and Laurel weapons unlocked, which you should do as you progress naturally through the game, and you’ll also need the Yellow Sign Relic from the Moongolow Bonus stage. This Relic will reveal four new passive items on every map in the game: the Gold Ring, Silver Ring, Metaglio Left, and Metaglio Right. You’ll need to gather all four later, but for now just make sure you have the capacity to do so.

Step 1: Acquire the Clock Lancet and Laurel

Once the prerequisites are sorted, we can get started with the guide proper. You can choose any normal stage for this, and there are rewards for defeating Red Death in each, so pick one you think you can handle. (Mad Forest is always a safe bet.)

In the level, you’ll need to pick up the Clock Lancet and Laurel weapons. These are both useful support weapons, but they don’t deal any damage. The best strategy is to pick up a few damaging weapons first before adding these to your build later. Don’t wait too long, though, as you’ll risk not being able to find them in time, particularly if you don’t have many Rerolls/Skips/Banishes unlocked yet.

Step 2: Acquire the Silver Ring, Gold Ring, Metaglio Left, and Metaglio Right

Now we come to those passive items unlocked by the Yellow Sign. You’ll need all four to defeat Red Death, which is a problem because they’re located at the far reaches of each map, making collecting them all in time tricky. There are a few ways you can address this problem, such as choosing a character with high MoveSpeed, grabbing the Wings passive item, turning on Hyper Mode, or all of the above.

When you grab one of these items, or even get near one, a powerful Atlantean enemy will spawn. These guys deal a ton of damage and have a lot of health, but fortunately they don’t move very fast. You can wear them down slowly as long as you stay one step ahead. They drop Golden Eggs when defeated, making them worthwhile conquests in their own right.

Once you’ve defeated Red Death in the Mad Forest, this part of the process gets a lot easier on future runs, as you’ll unlock the Mad Groove (VIII) Arcana card. This causes all items in the stage, including the four you need here, to be drawn to you every two minutes, cutting out the legwork and letting you focus on your run. It’s worth noting, but not something you can rely on for your first Red Death battle, unfortunately.

Step 3: Evolve into the Infinite Corridor and Crimson Shroud

Now that you’ve assembled all the necessary components, you can finally access the two weapons that will let you defeat Red Death in Vampire Survivors: the Infinite Corridor and Crimson Shroud. These are the evolved forms of the Clock Lancet and Laurel, respectively, and can be acquired by fully leveling up the weapons and their corresponding passive items: the two Rings for the Clock Lancet, and the two Metaglios for the Laurel.

These weapons address the two major problems with Red Death: its huge DPS and health pool. The Crimson Shroud caps the damage you can take from a single hit to 10, and the Infinite Corridor halves the health of every enemy on screen at regular intervals while also letting you freeze enemies in place. With these two weapons combined, Red Death goes from an unstoppable force to a manageable encounter.

Step 4: Survive until the 30-minute mark

Screenshot by PC Invasion

Of course, you’ll still need to reach Red Death in order to defeat it, which means you’ll need to survive the full 30 minutes of a run. This should be doable with the Infinite Corridor and Crimson Shroud, as both greatly boost your survivability, but you’ll need to construct a strong build around them as well to endure the enemy waves. Garlic, the King Bible, Santa Water and the Axe are all reliable choices here, which can deal with enemies all around the player, giving you excellent coverage.

Step 5: Defeat Red Death

Once you’ve made it to 30 minutes, it’s time for the moment of truth. Red Death will spawn in and immediately rush to your location, and your first priority should be to use your Infinite Corridor to freeze him in place. The lines that cause this to happen move round the player in a clockwise direction, so you can predict where they’ll land next and position yourself accordingly.

Once you’ve frozen Red Death once, the hard part is over. You can now position yourself to deal the most damage possible, while also constantly moving around Red Death so that, when it unfreezes, you can immediately freeze it again. With the Crimson Shroud, you have plenty of time to do this. But Red Death’s furious attack rate can still take you down quickly if you let your guard down.

After a few cycles, Red Death will fall, and you’ll receive five Golden Eggs for your trouble. White Hand will then show up and end your run instead of their crimson compatriot. If this is the first time you’ve defeated Red Death, you’ll now be able to purchase it as a playable character on the character select screen: something we highly recommend, given that it’s one of the most powerful survivors in the game.

And with that, it’s over. You now know how to defeat Red Death in Vampire Survivors, and the 30-minute limit no longer applies to you. Be sure to try this out in each of the game’s main stages, as there are different rewards available for each.