Blood Essence and Greater Blood Essence are essential for maintaining your castle in V Rising. Blood Essence is dropped by all living creatures - deer, wolves, humans, etc. - but not by the living dead, i.e. skeletons or your fellow vampires.
V Rising: Complete Servant Guide
Servants are a useful tool in V Rising - you can send them out to complete tasks, gather resources, and patrol your castle.Blood Essence is needed for powering the Castle Heart in your base and upgrades, so naturally, you're going to need a fair bit of this. Here's a guide on the best ways to get both types.
Updated October 18, 2023, by Sean Murray: It's no surprise that a vampire needs blood to growing their little empire. That's why we've refreshed this guide with improved formatting and breakout tips to make finding Blood Essence and Greater Blood Essence that much easier.
How To Get Blood Essence
Blood Essence is a drop from living creatures in V Rising. Once you've got them down to a low enough HP number, you'll be able to hit F to Feed on them. This takes just a few seconds, and you'll get a drop of a few Blood Essence depending on the creature's level.
Blood Essence is then used to power the Castle Heart in your base and upgrade pretty much everything available to you.
Just drag the Blood Essence from your inventory into the Heart to power vital crafting points around your base.
- Bandit Camps are a good place to farm for Blood Essence early on.
- Bears are also a good option for the beginning of the game.
- You don't need to Feed on an enemy to get Blood Essence - killing them works, too.
- Tainted Hearts might drop from level 10+ enemies. You can turn these into large amounts of Blood Essence via the Blood Press. See below for more information on that.
- Rats can also be turned into Blood Essence via the Blood Press.
How To Get Greater Blood Essence
Greater Blood Essence works a bit differently from regular Blood Essence - you'll need to use the Blood Press and Unsullied Hearts to get the more powerful essence.
- The Blood Press is a craftable workbench that you can install in your base.
- You then place Unsullied Hearts into the machine. You need four hearts for one Greater Blood Essence.
Where Do You Get Unsullied Hearts?
Unsullied Hearts are dropped by higher-level enemies. There is no reliable way to farm these yet, but your best bet is just to kill bosses over and over again, though you might also get random Unsullied Heart drops from 20+ level enemies.