The Blood of Dawnwalker Review – WHAT WE DON’T DO IN THE SHADOWS

The Blood of Dawnwalker has had dark fantasy fans salivating like a ravenous dog ever since it was announced back in 2022. And funnily enough, the development team named Rebel Wolves (comprised of ex-key Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 staff) have crafted a game that is almost exactly what you’d expect from them.

A Dried Up Well

The big hook this time around is the day and night system. Although it’s not a straightforward countdown you’d see in something like Majora’s Mask. Instead, almost anytime our lead-character-turned-vampire, Coen starts a quest, learns a new skill or advances to a specific point in the story, a certain chunk of time will pass. To pile on the pressure, he only has 30 days to save his family from an evil, vampiric cult and make morally questionable choices, so time here is literally of the essence. This also means that some of the open-world events/activities can be skipped or missed entirely, incentivising players to go back and try new parts of the game upon a fresh restart.

The thing is, I was able to complete a tonne of content in one run, clearing out most of the map (as far as I could tell) in 20 in-game days and 20 real-life hours, which made the time system seem completely irrelevant. That being said, did I feel compelled to finish every quest off? Nope. Is it worth replaying to see each outcome? Probably not. And does the time system add any weight to the story?… Eh, you could take it or leave it. Honestly, I didn’t find a lot of the quests to be particularly interesting, whether that be from a story or gameplay perspective. Even though you can tackle missions in a couple of different ways through dialogue, it’s mostly just about fighting similar groups of enemies to disrupt supply chains, or trudging through old caves that have samey-looking designs for the umpteenth time. Plus, since it’s an open-world RPG with plenty of optional content, the story can feel very fragmented.

The main villain, Brencis and his three cronies are touted as these big sons of guns you don’t wanna miss with, yet they barely get enough screen time to justify their plot relevance before they’re put down. So the whole, I’m-taking-back-my-family-with-life-altering-decisions thing doesn’t mean diddley squat when the audience hardly has a reason to care. Yes, the opening starts strong, and there are quality moments to be found, with some solid chemistry between Coen and a few major characters. However, they either don’t get enough build-up, or simply aren’t worth caring about, full stop. Several scenes also have a strange lack of sound that made them extremely awkward to watch at times. Didn’t help that after a major story segment, the PS5 version would routinely crash at the worst possible times. I mean, it’s nice that there’s a ‘Skip’ button to fast-forward dialogue. Yet when you have to re-fight multiple bosses over and over again (which I did four times in a row once), you’re gonna mentally check out sooner rather than later.

Coen at Ya!

With all that being said, are parts of the game still fun? Well, sort of. The combat does have a violent, visceral edge to it, especially when Coen slices off a limb or two for a stylish finisher, or teleports and savagely bites down on a foe’s neck for health. It’s quite enjoyable… at first. Around the 10-hour mark however, the combat started to become stale. Since the combat is mostly about attacking and dodging in four directions, several enemies share the same movesets and attack patterns, which ultimately make it feel routine. While you can teleport behind enemies, dish out a few special abilities that blind enemies, bleed them or just straight-up explode targets on the spot, it didn’t do enough to stop the combat from feeling rote. And you might say, “Why not opt for stealth?” Well, sneaky takedowns can’t be used anywhere near as often as you’d like, unfortunately. Unless you come across an isolated enemy (which is exceedingly rare), all Coen can do is take a cheeky pre-emptive bite for a portion of health and damage before he gets smacked. So hopefully now you can see why the moment-to-moment gameplay started to wane for me.

Exploring the locales of Vale Sangora was a tad bit more engaging, if a little finicky at times. Thanks to his vampiric blood, Coen can Shadowstep (teleport) onto walls and defy the laws of physics by walking up or down them, then launch onto an adjacent wall or slide down at speed with his sharp claws. The thing is, these actions can only be performed at night. During the day, he’s just a regular ol’ human with slightly different combat and traversal skills. I mean, it’s not that much of a change between day and night, but certain items, weapons, armour and abilities are either exclusive or better suited to one time of day than the other.

Luckily, he can still run super fast outside of combat at either time of day, once an early-game ability is unlocked. In all seriousness, this should be a staple of any open-world game methinks, as jogging between missions (especially to places you can’t fast-travel to yet) can get mega tedious after a while. In terms of visuals, The Blood of Dawnwalker’s got some nice textures and draw distance, though it’s definitely not the prettiest game ever, even when you opt for the Quality setting on PS5. It was also more than alarming that no 60FPS option was available when the developers initially revealed the console specs. However, just recently they’ve announced that a day-one Performance Mode will be available which targets 60FPS. A revelation that could not come soon enough.

Decision

The Blood of Dawnwalker has the makings of a killer dark-fantasy RPG, but unfortunately, it’s more bite-sized than bloodthirsty. Its vampire abilities, brutal finishers and day/night mechanics are cool enough to sink your teeth into, but repetitive combat, forgettable quests, undercooked characters and some downright murderous crashes eventually suck the life out of the experience.

By Anthony Culinas – Reviewed on PS5

Average

From key parts of the team that brought us The Witcher 3, The Blood of Dawnwalker turned out to be a disappointing letdown. Repetitive combat, forgettable quests and frequent crashes leave its promising vampire adventure feeling like a major missed opportunity.

This game was reviewed using a download code provided by Bandai Namco Studios. The Beta Network uses affiliate partnerships, however, this does not influence reviews or any other content published. The Beta Network may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links that are on the website.