Early on in The Blood Of Dawnwalker, protagonist Coen seeks sustenance by sucking the life out of scurrying rats before proclaiming how “revolting” the act is. He clearly doesn’t enjoy draining the rodents dry, but as the dark fantasy RPG’s titular half-human/half-vampire he has no choice but to feed off vermin if he wants to survive.
However, snacking on pests to stay alive is a no-brainer compared to the game’s myriad moral dilemmas, difficult decisions, and choice-and-consequence interactions that tempt you with precious rewards while simultaneously repelling you with accompanying risks. Continuing to satiate Coen’s blood thirst, for example, will unlock much more powerful vampire abilities, but at the cost of further abandoning his humanity.
Developer Rebel Wolves – comprised of many former The Witcher 3 creatives – revels in placing players in such predicaments, not to torture them, but to ensure they make Dawnwalker’s story their own. The game’s an open-world RPG, but aside from map-filling vantage points that’ll feel familiar to anyone who’s scaled a towering structure in the Assassin’s Creed series, it does far more to evolve the genre than merely evoke it. And the endless choices and enormous amount of freedom players are afforded to shape their path and gameplay is largely responsible for that.
Coen lives among the picturesque Carpathian mountains, a lovely spot… save for the fact his village must pay a monthly blood tax to the evil neck-biter who’s decided to take it over. This awkward arrangement quickly leads to Coen’s family being kidnapped and scheduled for a ritual sacrifice in 30 days’ time. The player’s only goal is to save his father and siblings before the clock runs out.
Having just that single, straightforward primary objective frees up the rest of the journey to be incredibly fluid and flexible. Main missions, side quests, and optional activities all blur together in the best ways, often interconnecting unexpectedly. Supported by fantastic storytelling and nuanced characterisation, all objectives – big and small – also feel like meaningful pieces of the larger narrative puzzle.
An enthralling action-adventure.
Of course, assembling that puzzle also means carving through hordes of enemies, from minor human adversaries and massive mythical monsters to your fang-baring brethren. Thankfully, Dawnwalker’s combat is just as layered and flexible as its quest structure, progressing along deep skill paths for sword mastery, witchcraft, and vampirism. And like everything else in the game, dealing death comes with its share of compelling choices. Most notably, you can attack and defend in specific directions for more efficiency, or leverage easier, but less effective all-purpose swipes and blocks.
You also need to consider the differences between battling during the day versus fighting after dark. The former, for example, might see you using a combination of blades and blood magic to clear a battlefield, while the latter could have you unleashing your razor-sharp fangs and claws. Embracing your inner bloodsucker also means being able to teleport between enemies, occasionally swooping in to siphon their life-replenishing plasma, before, you know, boiling a target’s blood until he blows up.
Toss in an abundance of perks, abilities, craftable consumables, and other combat-shaping factors, and the contrasts between fighting beneath the moon or under the sun are just the beginning. But whether you decide to unleash a flock of attacking ravens using witchcraft or stalk the world as a wolf with your vampiric shapeshifting skills, the biggest choices you’ll make are informed by that aforementioned ticking clock.
While this clever mechanic never puts any undue pressure on you, it does factor into almost every decision you make. Time moves forward when certain objectives are completed, abilities unlocked, or other significant progress is made. But because the game gives you so much freedom, you can tick off the seconds however you see fit. This could mean spending your coveted time segments recruiting allies to help save your family, or investing those same valuable minutes to make Coen super-powerful, fuelling a more lone-wolf approach.
The Blood Of Dawnwalker is an incredibly deep, layered, rewarding experience that’s an easy recommendation for RPG fans craving a fresh, riveting take on the genre. But even if you’ve never sunk hours into looting, levelling, and laying waste to dark fantasy foes, its engrossing story and characters, rich worldbuilding, engaging systems, and freeform quest structure make it an enthralling action-adventure worth leaving your coffin, er, comfort zone for.
