• Price: $14.99 USD
  • NOTE: currently incompatible with Switch 2 console
• Developer: Little Bat Games
• Publisher: Ultimate Games
• Release Date: February 17, 2026

A review code was kindly provided by 1UP PR on behalf of Little Bat Games and Ultimate Games. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Rated M; content warnings: anxiety & depression, addiction, suicidal ideation, body shaming, discussion of sex and religion, implied sexual assault, mentioned murder, etc.

Besides the obvious issue of outliving any mortals they befriend, I’ve never really thought about how living so long would affect vampires or other immortal beings. Little Bat Games decided to explore the struggles faced by vampires over centuries of (un)life in Vampire Therapist, which, as the name suggests, involves vampires seeking help for their issues. It’s such a unique premise for a game, so I was excited to “sink my teeth fangs” into this one. 🧛‍♂️

The game opens with a brief introduction from main character Sam, a cowboy-turned-vampire who became interested in improving himself as well as helping other troubled vampires. He travels to Germany to learn from Andromachos (“Andy”), the vampire who is apparently the only vampiric therapist in existence.

Andy is impressed with what Sam has already learned through informal observations in his (comparatively) short time as a vampire, and offers to mentor him as a therapist. Sam will take on 4 patients to start with, and he must also engage in therapy sessions for his own mental health.

Before each “round” of therapy sessions with his clients, Andy has Sam tell him about himself. Andy points out the “cognitive distortions” in Sam’s mindset about the events from his past, teaching him the formal definition of each distortion and giving him additional examples. While Sam came up with his own names for them in his informal observations and is aware of the concepts, he’s not immune from distortions, either.

After the scenes with Sam’s therapy, he meets with his new clients. Andy telepathically supervises each session so he can help you out when you’re having trouble. Every client comes in with different problems and primary distortions. It’s up to you to correctly identify which cognitive distortion is present in some of the statements made by the client.

Occasionally you’ll also get to choose how to respond to something they’ve said, which can have entertaining results depending on the dialogue choice. After the first round of sessions you’ll unlock additional distortions, and for all subsequent sessions you’re limited to identifying the client’s main distortion plus 4 others that you choose before that session.

The good news is that – according to the FAQs – you can’t fail to help any of your clients. Serious topics are discussed in their sessions with Sam, and you won’t be able to point out all of their distortions in a session; as Andy points out, that would irritate the clients to constantly interrupt them like that. You can choose different cognitive distortions to focus on when you replay the game to see other ways for those sessions to unfold.

I just really appreciated how stress-free it was to make decisions about the distortions and dialogue since I didn’t have to worry about the right answers. If you misidentify the distortion in a client’s statement you can try again. And when Andy asks you to select the statements that are examples of a cognitive distortion, if you miss any he’ll repeat them for you to try again.

Unfortunately there seem to be some technical issues that prevent the game from “living its best (un)life.” As I played through the game there were many occasions where I’d try selecting a distortion when I’d chosen the wrong distortion before and it wouldn’t accept any input. Sometimes I couldn’t get the “cursor” to go down to the distortion options at all, and I’d have to press start and exit the menu to get it to work again.

I experienced a couple of crashes, and while I loved Sam’s recreational time in his “smart coffin,” the TV, which shows programs such as The Three Stooges, has great difficulty playing the clips smoothly. The TV lags and freezes a lot.

When I wanted to rewind the dialogue it often rewound to the wrong point in a completely different scene. The dialogue would auto-advance sometimes, and opening Sam’s journal with his patient profiles and distortion examples wouldn’t pause the conversation. (The journal was a cool resource, though!)

These issues did detract from the game for me, but I still enjoyed learning about the clients’ issues. This game is really cool on multiple levels because not only did they seek advice from real licensed therapists, but they also took inspiration from historical figures for some of Sam’s clients. I loved checking out the references listed in the credits!

Not all of them are based on real people, but these vampiric patients range from a few hundred years old to over a thousand, so it makes sense for them to have some history behind them. I don’t think you have to know any of the historical, literary, or cultural references, but as someone who really appreciates those subjects I found them fun and exciting.

Despite their ages many of the problems the clients have are not that far removed from the issues faced by human patients in modern times. There are obviously some difficulties that are exclusive to vampires, but family problems, career issues, and addiction exist across every generation.

The patients aren’t necessarily the most likable at times, but we’re definitely seeing a more vulnerable side to them as they open up to Sam. However, I enjoyed seeing the progress they made in their sessions, and found them kind of thought-provoking, and entertaining too.

Once Sam finishes a session he goes and socializes with the bartender and customers in the nightclub downstairs. Naturally they don’t get as much screen time as Andy and Sam’s therapy clients, but the minor characters managed to stand out to me as well. (The goth couple who loves “sexy cowboy American” Sam always made me chuckle.)

It was neat to discover where Sam came from and how he developed into a better person before he came to Andy to learn more. Then we get to witness further growth in his therapy with Andy as he works with his own clients.

And once the main story concludes, players can enjoy the Couples Therapy DLC, which is already included in the game. In this content, Sam does his best to help a couple sort out their communication issues while also checking out the events happening around the nightclub in Leipzig. After that there are some brief therapy sessions with a surprising client.

It took me roughly 10 hours to play through the game the first time. The game isn’t perfect, with technical issues and some unnecessary mini games. I think the text should have been larger for accessibility purposes, but thankfully the dialogue is at least voice acted – and voice acted well – with talent from the cast of Hades and other acclaimed series.

The writing is quite clever, and they balanced the serious and the comedic moments well. I found the idea of vampire therapy really fascinating, and kept thinking about how different aspects of the industry would work in that context.

Similar to therapy, I recognize that Vampire Therapist has its imperfections, but I accepted them and was still able to move past them to enjoy what is ultimately a very thoughtful and creative experience. I’d definitely recommend it, and I would absolutely love to see them make a sequel someday. It’s just “fang-tastic”! 😉