The Blood of Dawnwalker [REVIEW] – A Brilliant, High Stakes Adventure

When a new studio formed by former developers of The Witcher 3 announces a massive, dark fantasy RPG, it is impossible not to have high expectations, right? I’ve been really excited to get my hands on The Blood of Dawnwalker ever since it was revealed, and despite a few technical rough edges, it is an absolutely spectacular adventure that’ll keep you locked in from start to end.

Check out some screenshots down below:

Set in the 14th century during the height of the Black Death, The Blood of Dawnwalker drops players into Vale Sangora, a Carpathian region ruled by a ruthless vampire lord named Brencis. You play as Coen, a young local who is violently turned into a ‘Dawnwalker’ – a rare breed of vampire who retains his humanity during the day but succumbs to his bloodsucking nature when the sun goes down. Following a brutal opening sequence, Brencis takes your family hostage, planning to sacrifice them at his coronation. You have exactly thirty days to build alliances, master your new supernatural abilities, and try to save them.

The story is the absolute highlight of The Blood of Dawnwalker, with it packed with morally grey choices and anchored by stellar performances from the voice actors that really help bring the tale to life. Believe me, actions have massive consequences here, and if you make the wrong call, entirely different storylines can splinter off and key characters can genuinely die. In a brilliant, albeit stressful twist, if you try chatting to a friendly NPC at night while your health is critically low, Coen might even lose control and drain them dry – it’s a brilliant (and somewhat stressful) mechanic that I initially discovered on social media, but that demonstrates the sheer creativity on show within the storytelling.

What really makes The Blood of Dawnwalker special is how it handles that thirty-day limit. This isn’t a constantly ticking real-time clock that rushes you while you explore, but instead, time acts as your most precious currency. Every day and night is split into eight chunks, and doing almost anything meaningful will cost you time – quests drain your time, fixing fast travel points drains your time, and brilliantly, even sitting down to spend your hard-earned skill points takes a bite out of the clock. You’ve really got to plan accordingly, because ill-spent time can be a real deal-breaker.

“The Blood of Dawnwalker is a gripping experience that balances out the stress of time management with excellent storytelling and exciting RPG gameplay.”

Because of this, you simply cannot do everything in a single playthrough. It actively discourages you from mindlessly clearing map markers, and the standard open-world busywork is rarely worth the hours you lose doing it. You have to make actual sacrifices, deciding who to help and who to leave behind, and with most open-world games encouraging players to do everything, The Blood of Dawnwalker forces you to play differently. It also makes the day-and-night cycle incredibly important, as Coen can only use certain abilities while the sun is up, and relies on his vampire traversal skills under the cover of darkness… it’s a striking balance that helps bring a sense of variety across every single day that passes in-game. Again, it can be stressful, but it’s also the element of the experience that makes it feel so unique and special.

When it comes to combat, The Blood of Dawnwalker uses a directional melee system, meaning you have to manually flick your attacks and parries up, down, left, or right to match your opponent’s swings. Early on, Coen is incredibly fragile, and standard grunts soak up a ridiculous amount of damage. Honestly? It could feel a little frustrating, with the learning curve feeling like another stressful element to add to balancing time. However, once you find your groove, get some decent gear, and unlock a few abilities, it completely transforms. Fights turn into rhythmic showdowns where you are perfectly parrying multiple guards at once while weaving in vampiric abilities, and it is so damn satisfying. Honestly, the evolution within combat as you play (and, of course, as your skills improve) is night and day (see what I did there?), with the game going from strength to strength as you expand your skillset. And sure, there are still some flaws here and there – particularly with some repetitive enemies and the occasional clunky combat animation – but it’s hard not to be left impressed with just how enjoyable it all is.

On the technical side, there are a few small hiccups. I’ve seen the frame rate struggle a couple of times, some lighting glitches, the occasional weird-acting NPC, and even some camera issues during some of the game’s sequences. They’re imperfections more than anything, but it does show that The Blood of Dawnwalker could do with a little bit more polish to refine some of this jank.

Check out some screenshots down below:

Thankfully, the incredible art direction easily outshines any of these problems. Vale Sangora is a gorgeous map that strikes a perfect balance between medieval architecture and unsettling gothic horror, avoiding the relentlessly drab colour palettes that plague so many games in this genre and bringing it all to life with wonderful visual flair. The soundtrack is outstanding too, with haunting strings and deep Gregorian chants adding a sense of cinematic presence that just brings everything together perfectly.

Developer: Rebel Wolves
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Platform(s): PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, PC
Website: https://dawnwalkergame.com/us/en/home