Did we miss anything in this section? Is there something we didn't discover? Let us know!

Walkthrough

We wrote this walkthrough using the normal difficulty and version 1.1.23 of the game.

Quest walkthroughs only contain information relevant to the quests. For more detailed information about the maps where the quests take place, please refer to the Locations section.

Some minor side quests are handled in the location entry for the map where the quest takes place.


Characters

Each time you advance a skill in rank, you gain a point of mastery for that kind of skill, either Mystic Warrior (melee skills) or Occult Hunter (ranged skills). Each point of mastery gives a +1% bonus to damage for that kind of skill, so it's a good idea to specialize as a melee or ranged character rather than trying to be a jack of all trades. With enough mastery, you'll also earn Mastery Bonuses, which are useful as well.

Most perks are unlocked by advancing your ability scores past specified thresholds. The key here is that you can use a respec NPC to adjust your ability scores so you meet the requirements for a perk, and then you can adjust your scores back to how you want them, and you won't lose the perk. So you might want to view the Perks page to see how you can get the "good" perks for your character. You'll only be able to earn 10 perks.

Katerina will always gain xp when you do, even if she's "dead."

The maximum level for Van Helsing is 30. The maximum level for Katarina is 25. You should reach those levels by the end of the game.


Equipment

You'll be able to gamble for equipment starting in Chapter 2. Epic items and set items are possible prizes.

When gambling, it's actually easy to detect when an item will turn into an epic or set item. That's because the icon you see in the gambling window is the same as the one the new item will have in your inventory, and epic and set items have unique appearances. So if you're gambling and you see an unfamiliar icon, buy it.

Most of the bonuses on the weapon you're not using will still apply to your character (making Excalibur, for example, useful for a ranged character).

When inserting essences into equipment, any worn item with a default defense rating is considered armor, while other worn items are considered accessories. That is, boots, capes, chest armor, and gloves are armor, while amulets, belts, hats, rings and trophies are accessories.

The maximum essence capacity on any item is 50. You can add at most two Capacitive Essences to an item to increase its capacity by 20.

The easiest way to increase your Find Magic Item chance is to use essences. If you use Capacitive Essences to increase the essence capacity on your weapons to 50, and fill them up with Primordial Essences, then you can get a 200% bonus right there. Any Find Magic Item bonuses on Katarina's equipment won't give you their full benefit. You'll only get half.

It's useful to give one of your characters the Alchemist perk. That way you can use your alchemy character to combine essences for your other characters. Alchemists can combine essences more efficiently than other characters, giving more benefit for the capacity.


Miscellaneous

Skills require mana, and powerups require rage.

You can map skills to the left and right mouse buttons, and you can map a grouping of three powerups to the spacebar. You can map two tricks to the A and S keys, and if you have a patched version of the game, then you can also map two tricks or skills to the D and F keys.

There is no manual for the game.

Pressing the N key will zoom in the view at the position of the mouse cursor.

The "power gauge" on the main menu screen doesn't do anything.

Enemies do not re-spawn.

The game only keeps one save (plus a pair of backups) for each character. If you want to keep your own backups, you can find the saved games in /Users/[User Name]/My Documents/NeocoreGames/Van Helsing/SaveGame/[Long Number]/.