Vampire Survivors stealth-launches Emerald Diorama DLC, but PlayStation cross-save looks unlikely

Vampire Survivors is the game that just keeps on giving, and creators Poncle just dropped a completely free new DLC for the game. You can download Emerald Diorama, an update based on the Square Enix fantasy RPG franchise SaGa right now over on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo.

Emerald Diorama out now!

Vampire Survivors: Emerald Diorama | Launch Trailer | OUT NOW - YouTube

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The update was announced during the Triple-I Initiative show as a surprise drop, and will add 12+ characters, 16+ weapons, and 9 new music tracks to the game.

Of course, there is also a new stage to complete and character parties because "no JRPG is complete without a squad" so it looks like we'll be able to take more than one character out into a level for the first time ever (outside of co-op antics).

You'll unlock the ability to summon up to 4 Kugutsu combat puppets, "fighting independently with their own weapons in a defensive cross formation. "

Here's some shots of the new Emerald Diorama stage as grabbed from the Steam update.

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As well as the new characters and weapons, there's also a 'Glimmer mechanic' taken straight from the SaGa series. Whenever you attack with the 16 new weapons , there's a chance to spontaneously learn a special technique through the Glimmer system.

• Fleuret - stab enough encroaching enemies and you'll Glimmer the Crystalline Carve, letting you freeze foes whilst cutting them down.
• Pressure Point - unleash a barrage of martial arts blows at close range to Glimmer the far-reaching fire jab Shenlong Firefist.
• Hecaton Machine Gun - shoot a blistering salvo of interestingly inaccurate bullets to Glimmer the Bombarding Fire technique, blasting baddies with a massive upheaval of the earth.
• Hyperion Bazooka - master these high-power missiles that explode as they penetrate through hordes of foes to Glimmer the Cosmic Rave to massively multiply your firepower.

There's also a chicken level, yes really.

As if Emerald Diorama wasn't enough, there's also a chicken-themed update called 'The Coop'. This includes:

• New relic that lets you speed up the game
• New stage, character, weapon, darkana
• 8 new achievements
• 2 new Adventures with 6 chapters each
  • “To End an Ice Age” for the base game
  • “Tides of the Foscari” for the Tides of the Foscari DLC

Cross-save now available on 'most' platforms

Cross-save is now available on PC, Xbox, Android, and iOS, with Nintendo Switch soon to follow.

It is not currently available on PlayStation and the update from Poncle states "The chances of Cross-Save coming to PlayStation consoles are now very slim, but not impossible, so we're going to keep working alongside PlayStation to resolve these problems. We're so sorry to build up any anticipation for this feature on PlayStation only to change plans at the last minute."

It's not clear what the issues are with cross-save on PlayStation but hopefully the issue is a technical one and not a similar situation to when Sony blocked cross-play and cross-save with Fortnite.

How to use cross-save in Vampire Survivors

Poncle have published a helpful guide on getting cross-save to work with your platforms, but first you'll need to create a Poncle account.

You then sign into this using the cloud icon at the top right of the Vampire Survivors menu, where you can push your data to the cloud then download it on another platform.

I now just have to decide which platform I have the most progress on, Steam or Xbox?

Depending on the platform, when loading a save you may be given the choice to apply and unlock the platform achievements that are unlocked in the save data that you are loading.

How to unlock Emerald Diorama in Vampire Survivors

To unlock the content of Emerald Diorama: find the new merchant in Moongolow and buy the Emerald Disk for 50k gold coins.

Proceed with the chain of unlocks that starts in the new stage, Emerald Diorama.

How to unlock the Chicken Coop in Vampire Survivors

You need to collect a 'lifetime' total of 500 Floor Chickens to unlock The Coop. So you best have a strong stomach.

If you've been playing the game for a while, you've probably already done this, though it's not clear if it's counted retrospectively or not, I certainly hope so.

The Chaos Roadmap gets clearer

We already knew cross-save was coming when Poncle revealed the Chaos Roadmap but many other items remained a mystery. We now have the Emerald Diorama, The Coop and a Vampire Survivors lore book revealed (yes I have preordered it).

What's next this year for Vampire Survivors? Whatever it is, please let me finish this DLC first!