TSA has reviewed The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Extended Edition:

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Extended Edition Review

Vlad tidings we bring.

Every once in a while, review codes turn up at TSA for games that have been around for ages. It’s something that hasn’t been helped by the many releases in the series, with three games coming in staggered releases across PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. In fact, I assumed this was the trilogy encompassing Final Cut, which has been on Steam for over a year, but it soon became apparent that Neocore have decided to release the three games on console as Extended Editions in turn. Given the full trilogy Final Cut is sat in my Steam library I was surprised that a similar release was not forthcoming here

So The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Extended Edition (a name both to conjure with and to artificially pad out a review’s word count) is the first of the three and the sole entry on PS4 right now, as it lags behind the other platforms. It’s also out on Xbox One as of April, where the second game released in October of 2016, and the whole trilogy is already out on PC. Is this making much sense?

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What’s Good:

• Gothic atmosphere
• Great companion
• Generally well-written
• Compulsive action RPG gameplay

What’s Bad:

• Attrition replaces difficulty
• Too much useless loot
• Incomplete

 

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Extended Edition is a good action RPG that is a welcome addition to the PS4, but is held back by some uninspiring loot, uneven difficulty and the decision to release the trilogy one game at a time. This version does include all of the enhancements from the Final Cut, but it’s difficult to recommend buying this alone when the full trilogy is so often discounted on PC. Given the likely future releases, I fully expect this to appear on PS+ fairly soon. So unless you have completely rinsed Diablo 3, and are bored of Alienation but desperate for more loot, I’d stake clear of this until the full trilogy is released.

Score: 6/10

The state of Van Helsing: Final Cut on GOG and Xbox is being explained in this article on the Neocore site.

You know, we’ve been cautiously optimistic about the schedule of the release of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut on GOG.com, while patching the Xbox One version, but by now it should be clear to you that we have complications (concerning weird science).

And it’s only fair that you guys request The Official™ Answer regarding these things, as it is something you clearly crave, judging by the comments.

But fundamentally, there’s nothing new to tell. We’re still working as hard as we can, like a little steampunk factory. Pun maybe intended, as we have years of experience with Steam so far, but we’re quite new to Microsoft’s Xbox platform with its certification process and to the GOG Galaxy client. Remember, we’re still a growing company, testing is slower than expected, unexpected problems are more unexpected than expected, but still, we firmly believe from week to week that we can finish all the work the next day.

Officially™:

• Yes, we’re working on the Xbox One patch. Achievements will be fixed, that wasn’t the hard part. You’ll get that sweet Gamerscore and hundertprozent, rest assured. But the update will include fixes in multiplayer mode, and that takes time, and we can’t release these fixes separately, as it would require to go through two certification processes, and that would mean more delays. We don’t want that, do we?
• Yes, we’re working on bringing Final Cut to GOG.com, but there are still a few bumps on the road, the game must work perfectly with the GOG Galaxy client, and that takes also time. (If you have the trilogy on GOG, you’re eligible for a free Steam copy of Final Cut in the meantime, we can offer you this much. Contact support@neocoregames.com)
• And yes, indeed we’re working on other things as well, but that doesn’t interfere much with said things, our sub-teams are divided smartly and are focusing on single tasks.

Thanks Couch.

Update 1.0.5 to Van Helsing: Final Cut is now up on Steam.  The changelog is massive, but they've updated every aspect of the game, including bug fixes and changes to skills, quests, items, balance, and more.

More information.

Gaming Nexus likes The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut:

Budapest-based developer NeocoreGames has outdone itself. The amount of content in The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut is staggering, to say the least. Final Cut combines the entire Van Helsing trilogy, plus all of the downloadable content, into one giant package. The Final Cut also revises the entire experience to make the content more compelling. The three campaigns now flow flawlessly into one another. Fans of action role-playing games such as Diablo will be right at home with Van Helsing. It contains the genre's primary elements, with endless monsters to slay, loot to collect, and quests to complete. If the campaign isn't enough for players, the developers added an endgame that provides an endless amount of quests and daily challenges. When all put together, Final Cut ensures a near-continuous supply of content.

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Score: 9/10

here are some reviews of Van Helsing: Final Cut.

All that is epic, 7.5:

At the end of the day, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut is, much like its protagonist, good at what it does, but is rough in places. It knows what it wants to be, and for the most part it does what it wants to do well. It does run into a few hiccups here and there, but it’s still a good game to play if you just want to unwind after a long day at work. If you’ve played and own all three games in the series, there really isn’t much here to get you to play Final Cut outside of all three games being in one place. However, if you’re curious about the series but never got into it or you aren’t a diehard fan, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut is the perfect game to jump into.

Modvive, 9:

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is a fine addition to a genre as old as gaming itself. It serves to prove just how far along we’ve come with this industry, and how accepting to evolution it really is.

The Final Cut version adds some much needed quality of life changes, like higher quality textures and the highly desired multiplayer. It’s worth a look, especially if you have friends who interested.

Otaku Gamers, 7:

Overall The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut only really brings streamlining of the trilogy with other minor changes. Players who already own all 3 got the upgrade for free, so this is more advertised to new players. As a series Van Helsing is a strong competitor in the ARPG genre if not a top contender. With a strong gameplay, good audio and only slightly dated graphics this underdog is easily worth the investment in both time and money.

Just Another Gaming Site, 6:

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: The Final Cut at first promised the ultimate Van Helsing experience and it kept its word for some part, the game lacks a certain defining factor of any remaster, polish making The Final Cut look more like a hasty patchwork with a few added features. Though new things have been added in copious amounts, the existing issues still remain largely unaddressed with the stiff animations and clunky menu management remaining the same among others.

Noobfeed:

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Final Cut still lacks the polish of other titles like Diablo 3 and Path of Exile, but it does provide a way to play through the entire story while holding onto your characters. It recreates the classic hack ‘n' slash formula competently and the gothic-noir setting sets it apart from other ARPGs. As long as you're invested in another ARPG, there's little else to be found here, with the lack of polish and possible bugs you may encounter. Those who own the trilogy receive it for free and new players should head directly to this version, should they decide to give the game a shot, as it is cheaper than buying the games separately. The Final Cut remains the best way to experience Van Helsing's story and, with enough patching, it can come close to being the definitive version it claims to be.

Entertainment Buddha, 8.3:

Played at the normal difficulty setting, Van Helsing is a pretty easy game, although the game equates enemy quantity with difficulty, and Van Helsing and Katarina are often hidden under literal piles of mobs. The overall design is varied and colorful and looks like the work of a much larger team with a big budget. The music is outstanding. Thanks to co-op and robust multiplayer modes, Final Cut offers a 50+ hour campaign and a lot of content.

Destructoid:

Otherwise, this is exactly what players should expect from a trilogy compilation. Thankfully, Neocore has taken some solid feedback from the community when creating Final Cut. I have issues with the basic design of the game's difficulty (more baddies = HARDER!!!), but if you are an ARPG fan and have neglected the series up until now, this is the best opportunity to dive right in.

Thanks Eye.

 The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut has been released on Steam.

Embark on an adventure in a gothic-noir world, where mad science threatens the peace between monsters and mortals. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut is definitive edition of the trilogy with six playable classes and a new endgame mode with a huge variety of open missions!

Van Helsing: Final Cut will be released at November 6 and all Van Helsing games have a huge Halloween discount:

We have huge discounts and great news for you!

The testing for Van Helsing: Final Cut is going great, which means that you don’t have to wait any longer for the final release date.
Van Helsing: Final Cut will be available on Steam on November 6! Excited?

You should be, especially because now you can buy all of the Van Helsing games with huge discounts as part of the Steam Halloween Sale.

Van Helsing Anthology: 66% OFF
Van Helsing: 75% OFF
Van Helsing II: 75% OFF
Van Helsing III: 50% OFF
Deathtrap: 50% OFF

You can buy the Van Helsing Anthology that includes all three of the Van Helsing games with every DLC plus the Van Helsing spin-off towerdefense, Deathtrap with a huge discount and next Friday you’ll also get Van Helsing: Final Cut for free. This is just crazy. (If I think about it, probably we’re crazy. But we like you that much.)

Happy Halloween guys!

The release date for Van Helsing: Final Cut has been delayed to the 7th of October. The reasons for that were apparently to allow a free delivery of the final cut when you have the three previous games, but divided over Steam and GOG.

Let’s get it out of the way then: the release of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut needs to be delayed. The new date is October 7.

Announcing this just before the original tentative date might be a little bit frustrating. Not only for you guys, for us as well.

There’s no way around it, although there is an explanation. And a silver lining.

First, on the issue of availability and accessibility. As you may remember, we have announced that the games were released on GoG.com. And now the question arises:

“If I buy two games on GoG and the third on Steam, will I get Final Cut?”

We haven’t answered officially yet, but here at the studio we were like: “What a question! Of course! It’s yours! We’re happy if you buy the trilogy, however you like it! You deserve the Final Cut, you deserve our thanks!”

We wanted to say that. And we still want to.

Now we can confirm that we can make it happen. Yes indeed. But this means a little more testing. A little more work.

We’d rather push the release date than to create an atmosphere of uncertainty, or a situation where some players can access the game and some players can’t. That’s just unacceptable, especially with the endgame content we created. It needs to be available to everyone at the same time. We want the best release in the history of the franchise. We want everyone to be happy with the product.

Another question was asked very frequently, and we haven’t given any straighforward answers:

“Will I get Final Cut even if I buy the last missing game after its release?”

To that we say: you can bet your sorry hat! You will get Final Cut if you own the trilogy! No. Matter. What.

But again: we need more time to make this happen. We’d rather work more on the solution than to let down a portion of our fans.

And of course, with this added time, the game would also benefit from a little more testing. It’s done, it’s finished, but let’s be honest: this is the definitive edition of our most accomplished game to date. We should release at its finest, and be extra careful with it. And we will be. We’re testing it like there’s no tomorrow. (Well, we just annihilated tomorrow, didn’t we?)

This concludes our bittersweet announcement. We would like to ask for a bit of understanding and patience.

But if you look at our reasons, you’ll see. It will be worth it.

Thanks Eye.

GameWatcher lists the features of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut:

Here's what's included in The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut, out this September 23

NeocoreGames has released a trailer for the upcoming The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut, showing off all the new features, modes and mechanics that players can expect from the complete collection of its action RPG series.

The new edition packages up all three entries in the series into one 50-hour campaign, reworks and expands the game's skill trees, and contains all the additional tower defense game modes.

As you can see from the trailer below, it packages a not inconsiderable number of other features in too. The video does a pretty good job of summing everything up, but there's also an in-depth guide over on Neocore's website.

Anyone who owns the entire Van Helsing series on Steam will get the Final Cut upgrade for free, while everyone else will be able to grab it this September 23 for $44.99.

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Our Eye found this!

Here are a few more articles about the road to Van Helsing, Final Cut. Also note that the game's release date is set to the 23rd of this month.

Part 8 Borgovia:

Oh, the places you’ll go! The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing take place in the small country of Borgovia, but it doesn’t mean that there’s little to see. Quite the contrary!

In the upcoming Final Cut, you’ll be able to see even more of this incredible country: explore its darkest corners, get lost in its twisted city-scapes, rest a bit in an almost peaceful settlement, or just encounter a place so weird, that it can’t even be explained.

Part9, The Lair:

Every monster hunter needs a nice place to return to for trading, resting, maybe decorating a little bit: in The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, this place is The Lair.
This place was founded by the original, old Van Helsing, in the old dungeons under the city. Since then, Borgova has grown and is powered by weird technology, so the Lair isn’t just a hidden, dark, empty place like its name suggests: things happen here. Plans are made. Events are set in motion. After finding this place, you may return here every time you want, you’ll need to, and even if you don’t, you definitely should. Here you can retreat from the everyday battles and do some chatting with the folks who live here: getting new quests, resetting your skills, trading are the main reason for doing so.

Part 10, Story Campaign

We already talked about the massive endgame content of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut, covering challenges, daily quests, events and scenarios. Final Cut will expand the game into something epic, more balanced, streamlined with the long term playtime in mind… but, all this has a very important foundation: the story campaign. You should play it, because it invites you to a Gothic Noir / Steampunk world inpsired heavily by weird fiction and Slavic folklore.

Part 11, Reception:

Talking about the reception of our games can be a double-edged sword, but The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing comes from a small independent studio (from a small country), and feedback was crucial in its development, every bit of media coverage helped. There was no way around it, so we have to acknowledge the importance of the reception.

NeocoreGames attempted two very ambitious things at once: 1. going independent and 2. developing an Action-RPG. We talked before about how the trilogy format came to be, how the manageable sizes helped to create essentially… the Final Cut. It’s a very risky project that was reinforced by the unexpected amount of feedback, and a surprising positive reception.

Thanks Eye.

Our ever watchful Eye has informed us that there are more parts to read for 'The road to' of the Van Helsing: Final Cut game.

There is part 4 about the weird science of Borgovia, part 5 about The Ink:

The Ink is an endless realm behind the scenes of everyday Borgovia – and it is also the primeval material of creation and dreams that had been used to write the world into existence at the dawn of the world. The Ink is an ethereal place of soft, crawling mists, capable of giving birth to wonders and nightmares and granting safe haven for pockets of strange realities or chunks of the normal world trapped in the Ink like bubbles in amber.

Part 6 about Lady Katerina and part 7 about events and scenarios:

Unlike the account-bound Daily Quests and Challenges, there will be globally active events present in the game world. These could be quest-based, loot-based, but they can affect the whole endgame. Some of them won’t be affected by the difficulty, but use their own system. We’ll look out for major holidays as well for some neat special conditions.

The main appeal of the events is to secure challenges to the players, but in a global, competitive fashion: there will be Leaderboards connected to these events, to see who is the best. Of course, being on the top of the Leaderboard will grant the players better rewards at the closure of these events.

In three recent blog posts on the Neocore site the devs go through the Van Helsing trilogy and the Van Helsing: Final Cut in detail, and the basics for new players.

#1 The Protagonist

Abraham Van Helsing is a well known character from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and many more adaptations, derivative works, spinoffs and fan works. He is the definitive protoype of the monster hunter, and as our new Action RPG was concieved back then, we realized his offspring was the perfect candidate for hunting montsters and exploring the unknown.

Inheriting the skills and gadgetry from his father, young Van Helsing is raising the stakes in a world gone mad through weird science and a darkness that leaks from the otherworld known as the Ink. With more powerful weaponry, a cool wide brimmed hat, and a witty ghost companion (Lady Katarina), he’s the best guy for the job we could imagine.

And most importantly, NeocoreGames is a Hungarian development studio, a country surrounded by the ominous Carpathian Mountains: a clear connection to Bram Stoker’s Dracula lore.

So we chose him for the protagonist role, and we began designing the game.

#2 Evolution of an Action RPG

The release of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (2013) was a success that let us complete the goals we set: mostly the second and third part of the trilogy and numerous updates. We’re arriving to the last destination of this journey: releasing and maintaining the Final Cut edition that connects the trilogy in an epic adventure with an immense endgame content that will keep the players in Borgovia for many months (hopefully, years) to come. It will be released this September, free for those who already own the trilogy, and at a great price for those, who are new players.

We started with the concept of the character, which we explained in the previous post about Van Helsing himself. As a small independent studio, it was quite the challenge to create an Action RPG on par with games from bigger studios, but we did it focusing on humor, the industrial-gothic atmosphere and a very tight gameplay. The result: a solid basic game that can be expanded later if it’s going to be a success, and if it’s necessary.

#3 Challenges and Daily Quests

In the previous post, we mentioned that The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut isn’t just the three campaigns put together, but there will be a massive endgame content available as well. It’s difficult to detail all of them in one post, so in today’s highlight we discuss the Challenges and the Daily Quest, both really exciting additions.

One of the new endgame features is a system where you can select various Challenges, similar to an in-game achievement system, but it affects the game itself. Completing a Challenge grants you endgame currency, and is measured both in Single Player mode and Co-Op. Challenges can mean different things, but ultimately they are smaller bonus objectives that you accept in a similar way to quests. These objectives will wary in categories, like killing specific amount of monsters, collecting, enchanting, crafting, selling items, completing scenarios, or completing multiple tasks or gameplay feats with more characters.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut is making its way to Gamescom. For those who forgot what this is, it is the collection of all three games with some extras.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut is a standalone product that:

• Combines campaign content from all three games with modified or added content
• Provides more than 50 hours of gameplay in the campaign mode
• Lets the player choose between 6 playable classes from the beginning
• Has a reworked and extended skill tree system
• Contains all the tower defense game modes, all made optional yet highly rewarding

Whether the player has completed the campaign or not, it is possible to

• Create a new character or get a level 80 character from the beginning
• Play one of the 20 scenario maps that can randomly assemble terrain, monsters, objectives and conditions
• Try out the daily quests, challenges and weekly events
• Join one of the refined multiplayer modes (4-player co-op mode, touchdown, arena, or battle royal)
• Reach level 100 and evolve further with an endgame featuring a Glory system, rare items and currency, Dreamshards

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut will be released in September 2015, and will continue to provide content for a long time to come. It will be a standalone title on Steam, priced at $44.99. Anyone who owns all three games in the trilogy already will get the game for free.

We have four screenshots in our gallery.

And a video:

Neocore Games announced a version integrale with content from all the Van Helsing games:

Indie developer NeocoreGames announces The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut

We're proud to announce that NeocoreGames has sold over 1 Million copies of individual titles in this incredible Action RPG trilogy so far. This milestone is a great opportunity to give back something to the loyal community.

By reading hundreds of forum posts, blog comments, reviews, feedbacks on various media, the developers of the trilogy conceived a definitive version of the adventure, coming this September.

The game is a standalone product thatcombines campaign content from all three games with modified or added contentprovides over 50 hours of gameplay in the campaign modelets the player choose between 6 playable classes from the beginninghas a reworked and extended skill tree systemcontains all the towerdefense game modes, all made optional yet highly rewarding
has a level cap of 80 (campaign) and 100 (with other game modes)

Whether the player has completed the campaign or not, it is possible to
create a new character or get a level 80 character from the beginning
play one of the 20 scenario maps that can randomly assemble terrain, monsters, objectives and conditions
try out the daily quests, challenges and weekly events
join one of the refined multiplayer modes (4-player co-op mode, touchdown, arena, or battle royal)
reach level 100 and evolve further with an endgame featuring a Glory system, rare items and currency, Dreamshards
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut will be available as a standalone title on Steam.

It will cost absolutely nothing for players who own all three games of the trilogy (by that we mean it will be free). For new players, the complete and extended content of the Final Cut will cost $44.99.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut will be released in September 2015, and will continue to provide content for a long time to come.