Vampire Survivors: All Secret Characters Listed (February 2023)

Similar to most retro-style games that have been popping up in recent ages, Vampire Survivors also has quite a few secret characters that are not immediately unlockable, hidden behind secret achievements which you must obtain in order to be able to purchase them.

How to Unlock All Vampire Survivors Secret Characters

1. Exdash Exiviiq

There are two ways to unlock Exdash. The first (hardcore) way is to pick up Clovers off the ground as you play and to hope that one of them will yield the Exdash unlock. Odds are 1/65535 and is a hell of a grind. However, do not worry, there is a shortcut, or a cheat code so to speak. When you are in the main menu, you need to type in “x-x1viiq” (without the ” “) and if successful, you will hear a sound effect.

2. Toastie

Toastie is the second secret character in Vampire Survivors, and the pre-requisite is to have Exdash unlocked first.

“Uppercut a non-red Reaper” is the riddle.

In order to unlock Toastie, you need to defeat a Stalker or a Drowner. After one is defeated, the character will briefly show up in the bottom right of the screen (for around half a second) and during that time, you must simultaneously press the Down Arrow (↓) key and the Enter key (a sound Jingle will be heard to announce that you have succeeded). In our experience, to make sure that we guessed the timing right, we kept pressing them repeatedly for those few seconds after the Stalker/Drowner was killed, and the operation was a success.

Now, the hard part about this is actually killing a Stalker or a Drowner. However, we’ll show you the easiest way for the current 0.5.2 patch.

How to Defeat a Stalker in Vampire Survivors

Stalker is a green version of the Red Death and shows up randomly at the Dairy Plant stage and at The Bone Zone. This character follows the player around for a minute or two and can sometimes speed up or slow down, so be careful to not get caught off-guard.

In Dairy Plant, there’s a low chance that he’ll spawn at the start of the round, but a somewhat higher chance at the 8th and 12th-minute mark. However, in The Bone Zone stage, he is guaranteed to appear at the 10 minutes so this might be a more suitable and less time-consuming option in our opinion.

Definitely the easiest way to kill it is to have a Pentagram, or Gorgeous Moon (by evolving the Pentagram with the Crown), or to just save a Rosary drop when you see it. If you choose to hunt for this achievement on the Dairy Plant stage, you can even use the spawned minecarts – just make sure to bait the Stalker to the tracks.

A good thing about Gorgeous Moon is that it’s visually known when the ability will go off, so you can prepare yourself on time. Pentagram can be timed using the in-game timer, but just make sure to note the interval at which it’s going off (it will depend on your cooldown reduction %).

How to defeat a Drowner in Vampire Survivors

It’s necessary to defeat a Stalker or a Drowner for this achievement, but we’ll cover both in case.

The procedure to defeat a Drowner (Blue version of Red Death) is basically the same, the difference being the location of this character. He spawns at the bottom part of the Gallo Tower and is raising the water level gradually, attempting to drown the player. You can expect to see him after a Giant Enemy Crab is defeated after 25:00. There’s no need to fear (much) since he doesn’t kill you instantly like his green and red counterparts. At The Bone Zone stage, he spawns at 20:00. It’s entirely up to you to choose where you want to challenge him.

3. Leda

Leda is a secret character that’s unlockable in the Gallo Tower stage after you defeat him. He is not visible on the map, so you are probably wondering “how do you find Leda?” However, this is fairly simple, it’s just somewhat time-consuming. From the start of the level, you need to move down approximately 32-40 tiles (or in other words, pass the starting point repeatedly 32-40 times since the level is constantly repeating). As you get closer to his location, darkness will surround you more and more, and ominous music will start playing. Make sure to slow down. when your visibility is hindered since Leda is very slow and might not be able to catch up to you, which then turns this into a wild goose chase. However, do not let him get too close as he packs quite a punch. He also has nearly 70,000 HP so the fight might take some time.

The riddle is “Investigate the bottom of Gallo Tower”.

4. MissingNo

We have made a separate, detailed guide on how to unlock MissingNo here by editing your game files, which we wholeheartedly recommend. Make sure to backup old files before trying this out without worries!

UPDATE: There is now a regular way to unlock MissingNo!

The riddle is “With the most adverse fate in Green Acres, run off the edge of the world”.

5. Red Death

We have made a separate, detailed guide, on how to unlock Red Death here. In order to unlock the Red Death, you must first kill the Red Death. There is an alternative way to defeat Red Death using the MissingNo. This is considered cheating for many since MissingNo is not regularly available through normal means.

The first step would be to open the Start, click on MissingNo, and check his Max Health stat line. If it’s a negative value, you can proceed with the game, but if it’s a positive number, you need to enter the game and immediately exit to the main menu. Then click the Start button again. MissingNo will be automatically selected since we’ve just played with him. Check his Max Health stat line. If it’s positive, hit Escape on your keyboard, and click Start again. Rinse and repeat until you get a negative value on his Max Health stat line.

The reason you are doing this is that when you have a negative value on the Max Health stat line, it means that you cannot take any damage, and therefore cannot die by the hand of the Red Death. The optimal stage for this is the Inlaid Library.

In essence, what you should do in this case is to just not move the character at all when you start the game. This is done because Red Death’s HP grows significantly with each level that we obtain (65535 per level). This is why you should just wait and remain at level 1 if possible. When Red Death shows up at the 30-minute mark, you are free to collect all of the XP around you and level as many weapons as possible.

And that’s it! Have a seat and relax until the first Red Death is defeated. It might take some time to deal the necessary damage, but it’s only important to defeat the first Red Death because you will certainly see more of them coming with each minute (and the new ones will have HP equal to your current level x 65535). Also, in case your MoveSpeed value is negative, don’t worry – it just means that your movement controls will be inverted. Missingno is quite a chaotic character indeed. Due to the fact that this fight will last way past the 31-minute mark, you will be unlocking the related achievement.

The Riddle is “Settle the score with the Reaper”.

6. Boon Marrabbio

With the new 0.6.0 update, Boon Marrabbio has been added as a secret character. We have covered this in the article which you can access here.

The Riddle is “Follow the trail after pillaging Pummarola and Skull O’Maniac from the Mad Forest”.

7. Smith IV

After you unlock Exdash and Toastie, there is a combination you need to perform. Here’s how to pull it off exactly:

Go to Main Menu.
Type SPAM on your keyboard (no need for shift/caps lock).
Go to Character Selection.
Type SPAM again.
Go to Stage Selection.
Type SPAM again.
Quickly select a stage and your Arcana (doesn’t matter which one you choose).
Upon entering the stage type HUMBUG and hit the Enter key. A Jjngle sound should play to indicate success.
Leave the run and open the character list.
Congratulations, you have another ghost on your team.

The riddle is “Sometimes you just need to ask for help” and Prima Games is of course, reporting for duty.

8. Minnah Mannarah

After you collect the Yellow Sign, have Arcana VIII – Mad Groove ready. Then head out to the Dairy Plant. When you choose Arcana VIII, all items on the map will be automatically drawn to you. One of these items is the Cursed Cheese. Go ahead and pick it up. A lot of werewolf bosses will spawn. In order to unlock Minnah, you need to defeat all of them. After this is done, you can leave your run, and Minnah will be selectable.

The Riddle is “Deal with the consequence of stealing cheese from the Dairy Plant”.

9. Peppino

Available since Patch 0.7.3, Peppino can be unlocked by healing plants in Il Molise stage with Celestial Dusting for a total of 100,000 with O’Sole Meeo.

The Riddle is “Be a Good Boy in Il Molise”.

10. Gains Boros

Available since Patch 0.8.0, Gains Boros can be unlocked on the Bone Zone stage by finding a secret garden.

The Riddle is “Find the only one place where flowers bloom in the Bone Zone”.

11. Big Trousers (Merchant)

Big Trouser has wares if you have the coin.

Merchant (Big Trouser) is a game changer, you ought to unlock him, he is very useful to have.

How to Unlock Big Trouser Secret Character in Vampire Survivors Patch 0.10

The Riddle is “Run Away from Moongolow with all 16 accessories mastered”.

12. Gyorunton

Gyorunton is a meme character. It really is! Go have a look at the article dedicated to Gyorunton:

How to Unlock Gyorunton, the New Character in Vampire Survivors

The Riddle is “Survive the Boss Rash with just one weapon”.

13. Cosmo Pavone

The fairy will show only for the pure-hearted characters.

How to Unlock Cosmo Pavone Secret Character in Vampire Survivors 0.10

The Riddle is “With a pure heart and two good friends, visit the fiery balcony in Cappella Magna”.

14. Random

Yes, this is correct, that’s the name of this particular question mark character. Although, it changes its name from time to time. Learn more about Random below:

How to Unlock New Secret Character “Random” in Vampire Survivors 0.11.209

The Riddle is “Look under previously owned coffins”.