The Blood of Dawnwalker Review – A Dawn Good RPG

The Blood of Dawnwalker is as brilliant as it is ambitious, promising plenty of massive feats without ever compromising on its wild goals. The limited time system and the perfectly layered combat, alongside the riveting story and grand level of player choice, create a unique and surprising role-playing game that everybody should play, as it’s the most impressed I’ve been with a game in quite some time.

As someone who really dug The Witcher 3 (a rare and shocking quality to have, I’m sure), I was extremely curious about The Blood of Dawnwalker as soon as I had heard of it. Still, there was a bit of cynicism within me, assuming that no game could keep the hefty promises made by Dawnwalker right out of the gate. Thankfully, this cynicism was entirely unfounded, as the game has managed to blow me away with just how meticulously made and enjoyable it is.

The game is primarily split into two segments: daytime and nighttime. In the daytime, you’re able to use main character Coen’s swordsmanship skills and his penchant for witchcraft, while the nights grant you access to vampiric powers and the ability to heal by draining blood. Both skill sets have their own benefits and drawbacks, as well as quests and activities that can only be done in their respective time periods. You’ll likely gravitate towards preferring one of the two combat styles, but having to master both is rewarding. You choose which combat styles you want to pump your skill points into, making it easy to create a pretty powerful version of Coen that suits your sensibilities.

The Blood of Dawnwalker’s combat strikes the perfect balance between complex and accessible, and takes little time to get used to once you’ve grasped the basics. Using your sword or claws, you use the left analog stick to choose which direction you slice or block in. You can also perform general omni-blocks and slashes, though these are rarely as effective as the riskier directional moves. 

Your goal is to attack in a direction that your opponent isn’t blocking in while also blocking their attacks in the direction they’re using. Perfect timing allows for a parry-like block that opens up a window for you to attack (and just generally looks very cool), crafting a sharp and blood-pumping back-and-forth that only gets better as you become more accustomed to its flow. I never dreaded entering combat with another swordsman or monster (though boars and wolves are a bit less fun to juggle, due to their lack of finesse), and I definitely felt each combat perk made fighting even more fluid and thrilling.

The time mechanic in The Blood of Dawnwalker is, surprisingly, its strongest feature. Going into the game, I had heard it was impossible to 100% it and complete all the quests because of that limit, which seemed to remove some of the usual stress of trying to experience everything in an open-world game. As everything takes time to do in this game – be it purchasing perks/stat upgrades or finishing sidequests – it’s important to manage each period effectively, though it’s up to you to choose how you spend said time. It strikes a perfect balance of seemingly limitless freedom whilst also likely keeping you on track with the main narrative, all without you really noticing.

The limited time mixes well with the role-playing part of The Blood of Dawnwalker, too. In a lot of games, it’s considered canonical that your character takes part in every side quest. In this game, as you can’t do everything, it’s easier to play Coen as whatever sort of character you’d like, be it a merciless avenger who goes all-in on vampirism or a reluctant warrior who avoids drinking human blood. The story is more impactful because you have to save your family within a set period of time, however you choose, which makes the experience more personal and meaningful.

Similarly, the gameplay and story of The Blood of Dawnwalker intermingle in a fascinating way. To get to the vampiric despot Brencis, you can destabilize his entire command structure by going after his three lieutenants. In order to do that, you’ve got to mess with their own operations – prisoner transports on the map, blood delivery, distilleries, etc. – to earn their ire and attention. These smaller plots contribute to the larger one as you strike at these operations and vampires, creating a sense of progression that is perfectly shared across the story and the gameplay in a way I can’t recall seeing in any game in recent memory.

The Blood of Dawnwalker pulls you into its plot pretty much immediately.

The entire narrative is worth praising, for that matter. The main story, involving Coen’s attempt to rescue his family, is emotionally charged and memorable, especially because of its unique setting that blends historical Europe with supernatural freakiness to create a pleasantly melancholy world and tone. The side characters are a real highlight, as many of the non-essential missions stand out as some of the game’s very best. I wouldn’t dare spoil any of the side stories, but rest assured that there is an immense number of them, most of which stand out as everything from cool to heart-wrenching. I recommend taking part in the questline involving the character Vicho when you come across it, as that one has stayed in my mind since its completion for all the right reasons.

Finally, the voice acting is genuinely top-notch in The Blood of Dawnwalker. Coen’s performance by Will de Renzy-Martin covers so many different emotions and attitudes, depending on your choices, that I can’t help but be remarkably impressed by both his range and his passion. The entire cast really sells their roles, whether as moronic guards or terrifying creatures of the night, which gives such an enormous game a lot of life.

The only issue I’ve run into with The Blood of Dawnwalker comes from a tolerable level of open-world jank. Sometimes, you’ll go through barriers or glitch around on inclined planes in ways that rarely cause any real issues, but do look goofy. Additionally, the “Balanced” visual mode that aims for 40 fps looks so strange to me for the first 15 minutes of any play session, though Rebel Wolves has already said that a Performance mode which aims for 60 fps will be available at launch, so this issue is likely to be moot by the time anyone reading this plays the game.