Dozens of hours into The Blood of Dawnwalker, I set out to ascend one of the game’s various towers to get a better view of the area. What I thought would be a routine task ended up being a vital location for another quest on the other side of the world, where I needed to pick up a sorcerer’s book. But perhaps even more surprising, it launched me into a genuinely harrowing three-hour quest that made me cry twice. I discovered all of this completely unprompted, simply heading off the beaten path — and it was all astoundingly rewarding, for both deepening my understanding of the protagonist, Coen, as a character, and some valuable benefits to my quest of taking down the vampire Brencis.
The Blood of Dawnwalker is an astounding success in nearly every way. Created by many of the developers that helped make The Witcher 3, Dawnwalker has some of the best character writing I’ve seen in a game in the last decade, weaving a superb story with real stakes and emotion in a non-linear fashion that works remarkably well. That core narrative is then woven through the most fascinating time-limit system I’ve ever seen in a video game, emphasizing player choice and smart character builds. While the game’s combat system does occasionally hold the game back, The Blood of Dawnwalker is one of the most remarkable RPGs of the year, if not the generation. An experience that draws clear inspiration from the formula of the Witcher games, but boldly transforms it into a twisted vampiric visage.
The Blood of Dawnwalker takes place in a fictional 13th-century region called Vale Sangora, approximately located in the real-world location of the Carpathian Mountains. While the game does technically take place on Earth, it’s a very Witcher-esque fantasy twist on things, where horrific creatures stalk the woods and a cabal of vampires, known as Vrakhiri, now rule. Years before the start of the game, a powerful Vrakhir named Brencis deposed the tyrannical king of the region, and now rules over Vale Sangora with one demand — that the people supply him with a constant stream of blood, and ingest that of the Vrakhiri in mass every month.
That setup leads to some exploration of power dynamics when government and rulers are overthrown — how one tyrant can be replaced with another of a different flavour. And how, across regime change, even efforts that are “for the people” seldom keep those actual people in mind.
“Dawnwalker wants you to revel in the depth and stories of its world”
In the midst of the Vhrakiri takeover, you play as Coen, a young man from the small village of Laslea. The opening five hours or so of Dawnwalker are intentionally slow, taking time to establish Coen’s history, his relationship with his family and his genuinely kind nature.
Coen was forced to grow up much faster than he wanted after his mother developed a mysterious illness of the mind, despite Vhrakiri blood having the ability to heal physical ailments. As the people of Laslea struggle under the Vhrakiri’s rule, one Mass goes terribly wrong. Coen is turned into a Vhrakiri, while his entire family is thrown into Brencis’ dungeon. From there, the goal is clear: you have 30 days and 30 nights to save your family before they are killed, and you will need to gather all the allies and strength you can.
I simply cannot overstate, in any way, how much the writing of Dawnwalker gripped me from start to finish. Coen himself is an absolutely fascinating protagonist, a pre-defined character who still has a degree of malleability, just like The Witcher’s Geralt. He’s consistently a thought-provoking, surprisingly well-rounded character, perfectly complemented by an equally memorable cast around him, many of whom come with lengthy story arcs that intersect in and out of the main story.
Stumbling upon a merchant in a random village leads you to Volk, the blind warrior who served in the wars with your father. Investigating a random quest at a trinket shop leads you to encounter a Vhrakir in hiding who fasts on the blood of animals, and whips himself as penance for being a monster. Following the noise of a shouting match in the city results in a lengthy, hours-long quest line where you help a ram-like humanoid out of a deal a crime lord tricked her into, which can heavily benefit you in another quest line late down the road.
What’s truly astounding about all this, however, is that you can pursue any story beat, any quest, in quite literally any order you want. A section of the menu called “Court” shows you Brencis’ forces and close confidants, mapping out the tasks you need to decimate his armies and take down his advisors. You can pursue these however you want, or you can go after quests that pop up on your map, or you can hunt for treasure.
Dawnwalker wants you to revel in the depth and stories of its world, and even more staggering is how so many of these questlines intersect and affect each other, or tie into the overall goal of taking down Brencis. The amount of permutations this game must have for how things can come together is genuinely mind-boggling, even more so when you factor in how things can play out differently during the day or at night.
The central driving force of Dawnwalker’s story is Coen’s newfound power and the warring forces of the human and monster within him. More importantly, his monstrous side is not necessarily something those powers created, but something they have helped bring to the surface. During the day, Coen is in his “human” form, allowing him to use sword attacks and witchcraft spells and heal by eating food or using potions.
“The sheer variety in how you can approach this world and story is hard to wrap your mind around, and this is easily one of the best time limit systems ever seen in video games.”
At night, Coen takes on his Vrakhiri form, unlocking a host of vampiric abilities and claws he can use as weapons. He can also heal only by drinking the blood of humans and animals. As Coen’s health drops, his hunger grows. If you are not careful, he will eventually be forced to feed on someone, whether that is a stranger, close ally or even a quest giver. And yes, doing so can lock you out of entire parts of the game.
Even more important, that time limit permeates nearly every aspect of the game. Each day is split into eight segments, with each night divided into another eight. Activities take up a set amount of time that you need to plan around. One quest might consume four segments, while unlocking an ability could take one or two. Overall, the amount of time available feels fairly generous. I didn’t run through the entire calendar until more than 60 hours into my playthrough, and if you don’t save your family, the game carries on in a very interesting way.
Still, I quickly found myself planning strategically around the time system and using it to my advantage. Did I want to spend time unlocking a bunch of abilities, making Coen stronger and helping him take down enemies more easily, even if that left me with less time to pursue lengthy quests? I also started planning quests around the time of day. At one point, it dawned on me that breaking into an enemy fort to save a rebel would be much easier at night. I could use my Vrakhir Shadowstep power to quietly dart over the wall, then drain human soldiers for sustenance as I fought my way out. Similarly, a lengthy excursion into a crypt filled with undead, which cannot be drained of blood, is better tackled in human form with a backpack full of food.
“The Blood of Dawnwalker is an astounding success in nearly every way.”
It’s utterly remarkable how profoundly the time system affects the core Witcher-like structure of Dawnwalker. There’s already a huge emphasis on player choice and ethos, but that time system adds an entirely new element into the mix – one that has deep ramifications narratively and mechanically. And everything just clicks together impeccably well. Sometimes it feels apt to compare games to puzzles in that sense, but Dawnwalker feels like a LEGO set – meticulously designed to snap together without flaw. That also extends to the game’s visual style, music, and phenomenal voice acting, all of which paint a rich, distinct picture of Vale Sangora’s culture and place in the world.
If there is one aspect of Dawnwalker I would point to as a weakness, it is the core combat. That said, I do not want to paint it as outright bad, especially because the system improves considerably as you level up and unlock new abilities. Coen can use his sword or claws to string together combo attacks, while special abilities rely on activation charges that build over time. The more distinctive element is the directional combat system, which requires you to block in the direction of an incoming attack to defend or parry correctly. Think of something like Ubisoft’s For Honor grafted onto the combat of The Witcher.
The directional combat can easily feel overwhelming for the first few hours before you truly get the hang of it, but it eventually evolves into a rhythmic dance that feels satisfying. The problem, however, is how many enemies you often have to fight and how much health they have. There are times when battles in Dawnwalker can feel exhausting, and not in a good way. It is important to note, though, that investing in more skills, exploring for better weapons and using the range of difficulty options can make a significant difference.
“Dawnwalker feels like a LEGO set – meticulously designed to snap together without flaw.”
The skill system, in particular, gives you plenty of options for how you want to approach combat. During the day, you might want to become an expert swordsman capable of decapitating enemies with a single strike. At night, you can explode enemies into clouds of blood, causing others to shriek in terror. Coen can lean further into those vampiric tendencies and begin rejecting his humanity if you want. Or you can take him in the opposite direction.
Still, I did find combat to feel just a tad bit monotonous at times, especially in some of the sections that had me combing through lengthy underground ruins. But it’s an overall small complaint in a game filled with absurdly ambitious ideas – almost all of which pay off in spades. Seeing so many of The Witcher 3’s developers go to a similar project certainly set high expectations, but I didn’t expect that The Blood of Dawnwalker would feel equally revelatory.
The sheer variety in how you can approach this world and its story is hard to wrap your head around, and this is easily one of the strongest time-limit systems I have encountered in a video game. It stands comfortably alongside something like The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. The way time works in The Blood of Dawnwalker adds so much intentionality to a story that already carries a strong sense of urgency.
What is even more impressive is how Dawnwalker maintains that urgency across dozens of hours while still finding room for the harrowing, personal side stories that made The Witcher 3 so special. It is a combination that feels distinctive, compelling and unlike much else out there. There was seldom a moment in Dawnwalker when I was not thinking about the bigger picture or wondering whether I was making the wrong choices. Yet it all played out in a way that consistently felt compelling rather than frustrating or disappointing.
But The Blood of Dawnwalker deserves its own place outside of comparisons to other games, because it carves its own identity as clear as the runes carved into Coen’s skin. It’s a superb RPG that accomplishes nearly everything it sets out to do, and I desperately hope that whatever plans Rebel Wolves has to take this series into the future come to fruition.
