The Blood of Dawnwalker Review
Ever since I first bought contaminated with Porphyric Hemophilia in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind or ran amok in Los Angeles in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, I’ve been patiently ready for an open-world vampire RPG that I might actually sink my tooth into. Frustratingly, regardless of quite a few makes an attempt in all these years, I hadn’t discovered something that quenched that long-standing thirst. With The Blood of Dawnwalker, an RPG that shares a ton of DNA with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt made by some of its former builders, my hunt is lastly over. Not solely does it take the vampire fantasy to the neck-xt degree, it additionally neatly finds workarounds for some of the restrictions that may be a bit annoying (like having to remain out of the sunshine), and introduces different attention-grabbing and intelligent concepts alongside the best way. The day/night time cycle that has you switching between human and vampire constantly makes for compelling questing, the restricted time you’re given to finish your journey makes even minor choices carry huge stakes, and the quite a few methods to make its bloody story your individual have motivated me to rise from the coffin and replay this journey greater than any sport has in fairly a very long time. This is the vampire RPG I’ve been ready for and I discover myself totally underneath its spell.
The Blood of Dawnwalker is a third-person motion RPG that places you within the sneakers of a no-longer-fully-human protagonist with lengthy hair and facial scars who runs round utilizing swords and magic to kill monsters in a gritty, darkish fantasy setting. Perhaps not probably the most unique premise from a bunch of former Witcher devs, however hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t pull it off the stuffed unicorn. You play as Coen of Laslea, whose city is taken over by vampires, then via a collection of unlucky occasions, is contaminated with vampirism and begins working towards the darkish artwork of witchcraft on the identical day. Tough break! Naturally, you set out on a roughly 40-hour quest for revenge in opposition to these evil bloodsuckers, utilizing your distinctive talents as a Dawnwalker (somebody who has all of the strengths and weaknesses of a vampire by night time however a human by day) to save lots of the valley of Vale Sangora from the clutches of evil.
While the premise is fairly fundamental, Dawnwalker excels within the telling, with a forged of extraordinarily well-written characters throughout the board, a world that’s crammed with extra mysteries than you possibly can ever hope to uncover throughout your time-constrained journey, and a few weirdly spectacular arguments for why possibly vampires ought to be in cost of the world that made me pause to surprise if I used to be, in reality, the baddie. I immediately discovered myself eagerly spending time with Anca, the sort witch with a tragic previous who break up her time between both educating me latin and magic or shamelessly flirting with me. Meanwhile, Crake, the insurgent chief with a bent to be heinously merciless in service of the trigger, and Lacra, an allied vampire who casually dedicated battle crimes half the time I frolicked along with her, managed to win me over regardless of being large pains in my ass. Even the first villains, like Brencis, who envisions a world dominated by vampires, and Ambrus, the footsoldier who revels within the displacement of the hierarchy of the Aristocracy and fancies a gentleman’s duel, have been all extremely compelling figures.
Dawnwalker’s greatest and most unusual characteristic, fairly appropriately for a sport all about vampires, is its day/night time cycle and the time mechanics constructed round it. As a spell-slinging human by day who turns right into a blood-sucking monster by night time, nearly the whole lot you do modifications relying on the time of day. For instance, in your human type you’ll guzzle down meals and drugs to heal your self, battle with swords and a fistful of witchcraft spells, and transfer across the quaint approach by operating, leaping, climbing, and whatnot. As a vampire, all that meals and drugs is totally ineffective to you and your well being can solely be restored by consuming blood, plus you’ll primarily combat together with your naked claws and acquire a complete bunch of neat motion choices – that features teleporting round as a cloud of smoke, strolling on partitions and ceilings just like the creepy little creature you might be, and even turning right into a wolf.
That means as an alternative of constructing one loadout of armor, weapons, consumables, and talents you’re pleased with, Dawnwalker requires you to keep up two separate builds, which gave my stat-obsessed mind twice as a lot to joyfully tinker with. My vampire construct was an absolute terror on the battlefield, with all my talents centered round feeding off enemies to repeatedly restore my well being, and I sought out as many objects as doable that elevated my claw injury to show myself into an unkillable unarmed freak of nature. Meanwhile, my human construct primarily relied on excessive threat/excessive reward spells that put a complete bunch of nasty standing results on my foes on the value of draining my very own life and making me fairly squishy. These two extraordinarily alternative ways to play meant I used to be virtually sitting ahead throughout fight. Best of all, every of these loadouts is stored separate and robotically toggled between while you swap types, so that you don’t need to manually swap out all of your armor and weapons twice a day.
Speaking of preventing, you’ll be doing fairly a bit of that, because you’ll primarily resolve your issues in Vale Sangora with the sharp finish of your blade. The fight is sort of good, with the caveat that it has a bit of a steep studying curve I think might be equally divisive. The fundamental approach during which it units itself aside from most RPGs of this sort is that it makes use of a directional parry system the place you need to match the route the enemy is swinging, which kinda jogged my memory of For Honor. You may also simply block assaults like regular, however doing so is pretty impractical (at the least on greater difficulties) because it drains your stamina and doesn’t present the openings for counterattacks which can be so very important to success.
It sounds easy, nevertheless it took me longer than I’d wish to admit to really feel comfy with it. The first handful of hours have been pretty irritating, and I often discovered myself fumbling via most fight encounters whereas cursing my ancestors. But there was mild on the finish of that tunnel – as soon as I bought over the hump and this method clicked, I grew to not solely prefer it, but additionally really feel fairly rattling good at it. Now I’m in a position to down even probably the most formidable hordes with out breaking a sweat, and that mastery felt earned past my stats going up. (Granted, I insist on taking part in most video games on the toughest problem, so it’s fairly doable I used to be simply making issues particularly onerous on myself and also you’ll have a better time from the bounce.)
Aside from parrying, although, you’ll be utilizing a reasonably acquainted bag of methods for an motion sport like this, with a mixture of commonplace assaults, particular maneuvers which can be particular to whichever weapon you’ve bought geared up, and a bunch of talents you’ll be able to activate on a cooldown. Naturally, all of this can differ relying on whether or not or not you’re in human or vampire type, which fits a good distance towards retaining issues from getting too repetitive. For instance, as a human, I fancied standing impact spells that drained well being and shocked enemies on the value of my very own life drive, however as a vampire, I’d pummel issues mercilessly with my naked palms and banshee shriek in my enemy’s face if I used to be feeling cheeky.
That mentioned, these bouts undoubtedly have some comparatively minor however fairly apparent locations they might enhance. For instance, the lock-on perform constantly gave me bother when attempting to focus on a selected enemy, and it stayed annoying regardless of how lengthy I practiced with it. The digital camera might additionally get caught in odd spots in a approach that was equally aggravating. And whereas the variability of enemies you encounter is fairly good total, the extra widespread beasts you run into within the wild, like wolves and boars, seem approach too often – by the top of my time with Coen, I used to be absolutely pissed off on the mere sight of the overpopulated canines.
While adventuring out on the earth, sure actions are solely accessible at particular instances of day. For instance, you’ll want entry to your vampire type’s superior motion capabilities with a purpose to climb to the highest of lookout towers and add close by factors of curiosity to your map, whereas rituals that require blood magic are solely accessible in human type. But even actions accessible at any time, like most facet quests, can have drastically totally different outcomes relying on which type you are taking. Some characters might be much less prone to belief you if you happen to work together with them in vampire type, whereas some areas is likely to be inaccessible if you happen to select to sort out it whereas human. If you actually muck issues up, your character would possibly simply straight up homicide an excellent vital NPC since you stupidly interacted with them whereas in a state of overwhelming blood thirst. Not that I ever did that in any respect, as a result of I’m tremendous good and excellent at video video games.
The most attention-grabbing facet of The Blood of Dawnwalker’s day/night time cycle is the way it ties the passage of time to particular actions you are taking, providing you with a finite quantity of time to finish your overarching quest. After the story’s opening chapter, you’ll have precisely 30 days to carry Brencis’ rule to an finish, and that deadline is stressfully enforced as virtually each motion you are taking prices a specific amount of time to finish. There isn’t a ticking timer or something – in reality, you’ll be able to freely discover the world or simply stand round idly so long as you need with out time passing. Instead, time is handled as a useful resource: wish to purchase the following degree in a selected ability? Well, along with the ability factors required, you’ll additionally need to pay the rather more expensive worth of the hours it takes you to coach in it. Want to assist that outdated man along with his minor downside since you’re roleplaying as an excellent individual? Fine! Go proper forward… however that’s one fewer section of time you’ve bought to probably full a extra substantial sidequest.
At first I assumed I’d discover this limitation irritating, since I fairly get pleasure from taking my time to scent the roses and mark each checkbox off my record in these sorts of open-worlds, however I rapidly realized how treating time as a foreign money makes nearly each facet of Dawnwalker higher. No matter how onerous you attempt, you gained’t have sufficient hours to finish each facet quest, purchase each ability, or tie up each unfastened finish in addition to you’d like, which suggests you’re compelled to compromise, choose your battles, and make onerous however impactful choices virtually always. For instance, early on in my travels, I talked my approach into a jail camp to get some intel from a prisoner there, one I might have gone out of my technique to rescue underneath regular circumstances. But once I noticed that it could value me three pips of time to take action (every day has 16 complete), I made a decision to go away him to rot as an alternative. I used to be compelled to make compromises like this each step of the best way, all in service of guaranteeing I had sufficient time for the vital stuff, and I usually discovered myself shocked at my very own choices. Fittingly, it made me really feel like I actually was letting the darkness of my new vampiric talents compromise my humanity in my quest for revenge. It’s brutal, nerve-wracking, and utterly superior.
This harrowing time-crunch finally has a reasonably huge influence on how your journey ends as effectively. I gained’t spoil something, however alternate endings will solely speak in confidence to you if you happen to’ve met sure characters or taken particular actions. On my first playthrough, there have been complete supporting characters and story elements I utterly missed out on, and I didn’t notice the scope of what I hadn’t seen till I took a completely totally different strategy on my second playthrough. In a 3rd (a lot shorter) playthrough, I simply went for a brute drive strategy to see what would occur if I rushed straight to the top with out assembly anybody whereas leveling up as little as doable, and I used to be not dissatisfied by the hilarious consequence. This is one of these video games the place I not solely needed to play via a number of instances, nevertheless it virtually felt obligatory with a purpose to see the whole lot Vale Sangora had in retailer. I can’t bear in mind the final time I’ve felt that approach about an RPG.
One factor I typically fear about with open-world RPGs is simply how dangerous their efficiency and technical bugs is likely to be, and The Blood of Dawnwalker fortunately finds itself on the much less egregious facet of the spectrum. Sure, on an ordinary PlayStation 5 it’s bought the occasional framerate wonkiness, the digital camera generally clips via stuff in awkward methods, and an enemy will often go proper via the ground while you kill it – however virtually the whole lot I noticed like that was fairly minor and unusual, and I by no means had a single onerous crash, damaged questline, or the rest irritating like that. The worst factor I encountered with regularity have been blurry textures on characters’ garments (or generally element of their faces), which might distractingly by no means easy out infrequently. Importantly, the model I performed didn’t embody the 60fps performance mode that was recently announced, so I can’t say simply how effectively it holds up on that entrance, however I wasn’t significantly bothered by the 30FPS high quality mode because it often regarded and ran effectively sufficient anyway.