Moonlight Peaks review: a vampire farm sim that can't quite sink its teeth in

Moonlight Peaks is a nocturnal farm sim from Little Chicken, published by Xseed Games and Marvelous Europe, priced at $35/£30. You play as Dracula's offspring who ditches the family castle to tend an overgrown farm in a small supernatural town — growing things like cruelcumbers and blood tomatoes while navigating feuds between vampire, witch, seer, and werewolf families.

The supernatural hook is genuinely fresh for a genre drowning in cozy, same-y rural sims, but the game struggles to do much with it. The town of Moonlight Peaks is packed with years of community bickering and a lot of all-caps dialogue, and the story never quite develops the edge its premise promises.

The farm sim genre has exploded in recent years, with Stardew Valley clones and cozy life sims filling storefronts. A vampire-themed, nocturnal spin is exactly the kind of twist the subgenre needs — Little Chicken clearly identified the gap. The problem is that a clever concept only carries a game so far when the writing and execution don't follow through.

Moonlight Peaks is verified for Steam Deck. Whether it finds its audience will likely depend on how much players are willing to forgive a thin story in exchange for a genuinely different aesthetic.