When The Blood of Dawnwalker was first announced, like most people, I was excited for “The Witcher with vampires”. Obviously, that isn’t an unfair comparison to make at first since the new Polish studio Rebel Wolves was founded by The Witcher 3 veterans like Konrad and Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz. Just by the look of it it seemed to share that similar fantasy, choice driven, ARPG ideology. However, as I was diving deeper into it, I started to realize that it reminded me of another game, Vampyr by DontNod Entertainment. The way it tells its vampire story with true consequences and time mechanics is mainly what made me think of Vampyr. So let’s dive deeper into this vampiric underbelly.

The Blood of Dawnwalker is set in 1347 AD in Vale Sangora. You play as Coen, a young peasant living in a small town called Laslea. This mountainous region is rich with silver and it has been overthrown by a vicious clan of vampires called the Vrakhiri. The leader of of the vampires, Brencis, is an ancient vampire from Rome and he establishes a new social order where humans provide blood in exchange for protection and healing from the rampant spread of the Black Death plague.

Through blood we are bound.

Coen and his family become bound to the Vrakhiri when, in a desperate attempt to help his dying sister, Brencis heals her with his blood. Of course, not everyone is happy with being ruled by blood sucking leaches. Rebellions start up, silver is obtained, choices are made, and death comes for many. To shy away from main story and opening spoilers, Coen of course is part of the rebellion where Brencis then turns him into a vampire. With the help from the local herbalist (witch) Anca, he learns blood magic to suppress his vampire powers during the day. His skin doesn’t burn in the sun, he retains his humanity in the daytime, hence the name Dawnwalker. His family is taken, and Coen has thirty days and nights to rescue them before they are sacrificed during Brencis’ coronation ceremony. 

This is what really sets up the entire foundation of what The Blood of Dawnwalker is all about. The duality (or threefold) of Coen of Laslea. How he balances being a blood magic witch, a vampire, and a human during his thirty day quest to save his family. From the prologue, the time mechanic sets the feeling of urgency, and at first I was concerned. As I was exploring Laslea, so many side quests popped up. Each one of them spent a section of time: time I had finite amount of. The main mission I had was to make sure I brought my mother back some herbs from Anca the herbalist, but how I spent the rest of my time was up to me.

Coen is a fantastic lead that I was constantly rooting for.

The thing is, depending on the side missions you do here, there are characters and dialogue and consequences that will happen later on in the world. It all felt important in its own way, and at first, I was scared of what I was missing out on by not doing certain things. I had to actually choose to skip things, or say no to certain quests because I had to prioritize what I thought was best for the story I wanted to tell for Coen. Then it really dawned on me; this is a true RPG fans dream right here. Finally, a recent game where my choices in the story feel impactful and carry forward, and I can’t just do everything on the map.

That being said, do not let that stress you out about The Blood of Dawnwalker’s story. Once you get out of the prologue and you start the full thirty day quest line, you will still be able to do A LOT within that time. You just need to learn where to cut down on some time. Do you need to spend that time slot having the NPC guide you (fast travel) to the mission spot? Or just travel there yourself? Is the side quest to rescue some randoms from a group of bandits worth the time slot that will force you into the day cycle when there are still night time activities that you’d rather finish first?

Is it worth spending time slots to go after the witchcraft missions? It’s up to the build you want to go with.

Each day/night cycle there are sixteen time slots. Eight for day, eight for night, and activities will range with one to eight time slots. Obviously, this all depends on how big or important the mission is. Majority of the smaller side content ranges from one to two, disrupting the main vampire clan missions are three to four, and larger main missions can be up to five. There are special occasions with missions being higher but those are very few. Luckily, every mission that will take up a time slot will tell you exactly how many it will take so you can plan out your days and nights how you want.

Like I mentioned before, this felt daunting at first. I had a bit of choice anxiety because there is so much that the mechanic revolves around. There will be certain activities only available during day or night. Upgrading higher level skills will also take a time slot as well. Do I want to go into this main mission or big fight as a human with just my blood magic abilities or do I want vampire abilities? What was at first anxiety, quickly became delight, and honestly one of my favorite mechanics in any ARPG I have played in a long time. It adds depth to the overarching world and story of The Blood of Dawnwalker.

I felt very invested in Coen’s story and even the people he cared about.

The story itself is also really great, I found myself really invested in Coen. He is a surprisingly deep and enjoyable character to root for. It also helps, that with how well the decisions are implemented you really get to grow and bond with him during his doomed quest for his family. Bigger side characters like Anca are also really well done with great side stories that are rich with lore that bring out even more of Coen’s character in one way or another.

While the hero, and grey area heroes, are well done, what I enjoyed was how well-written the main vampire clan is. Brencis has three main Generals that he has control the land: Ambrus, Bakir, and Xanthe. Each one of them control and run different aspects of the land and prey upon the people in their own disgusting ways. Oh, the absolute disdain you end up feeling for them and the glee that comes over you when you eventually dispatch them is riveting. As you explore Vale Sangora you will learn more about nasty deeds and how they contribute to Brencis’ rule.

Brencis and his court of horrors keeps track of your misdeeds.

You will uncover their many, many, messed up operations that somehow seem to just keep getting worse as you go along. We are talking some absolutely brutal vampire activities back in 1347, not you high-tech Blade stuff. As you disrupt the operations you will gain notoriety across the land which will make Brencis increase tax on items in shops, increase patrols, send hitmen, break shrines that allow you to upgrade and fast travel, and more. Eventually, once you disrupt enough of one of the General’s operations they will challenge you to a duel where you will finally get to face them. However, if you so choose, death is not the end for them, but I won’t spoil it here. Once Ambrus, Bakir, and Xanthe are dead, you will be able to confront Brencis himself.

What I love about the world of The Blood of Dawnwalker is that it isn’t just about vampires and the nasty things they do: terrorizing the people of the land, their rituals of blood letting, making the masses complacent and reliant, and doing their Blood Masses. It’s about blood magic and witchcraft as well. There is entire half of the game that is dedicated to religion, pagans, witchcraft, summoning spirits and the Devil. Ancient magics that once ruled these lands long before even the vampires did. To add more darkness and misery to it all, these practices aren’t any less gory than those of the vampires.

Witchcraft isn’t the most sanctimonious of practices either. Invoking the dead to give you informing isn’t all that holy.

Like the life of Coen, vampires, and witches: morality can sometimes be a little… grey. There are consequences to your actions that will range from small dialogue choices to larger quest changing ones. Depending on who you kill and let live will change whether you unlock a special armorer or a craftsman who can make you something beneficial for your quest. Picking up information and reading notes will also unlock special dialogue for certain interactions as well. There are even variables in talking to people while being a vampire as well. If you’re a vampire and your blood levels are too low, you will let your hunger consume you and randomly bite anyone you’re talking to. I do mean anyone. Even your love interest Anca, lwhich can result in locking you out of main quests.

Gameplay also follows the core tenants of the day/night cycle as well as the balance of blood magic and vampire abilities. During the day you will have access to all of your blood magic abilities while your vampire abilities will be blocked off and the inverse for night time. This allows you to manage and equip two different sets of gear and abilities that will auto swap when it becomes day or night. This is because there will be specific gear that will enhance your witchcraft blood magic abilities and your vampiric abilities. There are also specific items like food and blood vials that are only used for human form and vampire form.

Use your vampirism to your benefit like biting enemies mid fight for life, slowing time, and inflicting blood loss!

It’s a bit overwhelming at first when you’re really trying to maximize both sets efficiently. There are definitely some quality of life improvements I’d like to see like being able to compare gear side-by-side. As well as a real time stat update on what that item will change before you equip it. Outside of that, once you get used to switching between the day/night builds and diving into your builds it is a great system.

Besides the Witchcraft and Vampirism skill trees, there is the Swordmastery skill tree that is used during day and night. These are overall upgrades to Coen including how he fights, parries, dodges, how proficient he is with wearing medium and heavy armors, and special sword skills. This is the skill tree I invested in the most at first, and then I started to flesh out the others more later. Not sure if that is the correct way or not, but hey, I felt like getting all the bonuses on the perfect blocks and parries as well as removing the stat debuffs for wearing heavy armor was important.

Swordmastery was definitely the skill tree I leveled up the most first since it had skills both sides could use.

In The Blood of Dawnwalker you’re going to be using your sword a lot, hence why I really invested in my Swordmastery skill tree. There is an emphasis on directional combat, which means you will be attacking and blocking in the four main cardinal directions. The depth of the button inputs isn’t complicated as there is just blocking, attacking, and the d-pad to use items and abilities. However, it’s the mix of paying attention of the direction that multiple enemies are attacking from.

Chaining together perfect parries by blocking the correct direction at the last moment, and doing perfect dodges on unblockable attacks is very satisfying. Depending on the weapon you will have a special move that you can use as well, but for the most part you will be hacking, slashing, and parrying. The rhythm of the combat is what you need to get used to though. You can’t push the combat at all times or you find yourself getting punished easily. Often times it’s better to wait and let them come to you. Be patient and react versus rushing in like a lunatic. That being said, once you start unlocking more abilities and perks that allow some devastating attacks, you can be a bit more aggressive, but for the most part it’s better to play it like a duel.

Take your time and wait for attacks. Don’t try and rush in, and for goodness sake upgrade your perfect parry bonus damage!

Visually, The Blood of the Dawnwalker is kind of heavy. It isn’t super bright and beautiful in that traditional fantasy sort of way. Instead, it is a dark and gothic affair that feels like something can kill you at every turn. For the most part you will be in dense forest areas and dirty rugged towns filled with beaten down angry people. There isn’t much joy in the lands of Vale Sangora, understandably so, and the visual design really reflects that. Not to say there aren’t glimpses of beauty when the sun rises through the trees or you get a nice moon lit vista while at the top of a view point.

But that’s also why I love it. It’s so visually consistent with the overall aesthetic and tone of the story being told that it’s exceptional. The main characters are well done, with nicely rendered models and facial animations, while some of the side characters aren’t as polished. It would also be nice to have more fabric physics for the clothing and just more physics in general, but I can’t say any of that has distracted me from the game at all. There have been some small graphical oddities, like texture issues or an armor set had a gap where Coen’s neck didn’t quite meet the armor, so there was a see-through gap in-between. But again, none of this takes away from how much love and care went into the overall feel of this worlds lore and setting.

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As far as performance goes, I have no issues there. Despite The Blood of Dawnwalker using Unreal Engine 5, I did not have those annoying hitches while navigating the open world. I was able to max out the game with full ultra setting with an i7-12700kf, RTX 5070, and 32gb DDR5 RAM. I always just run at 1440p because that is what I prefer for balance of visuals and performance with my 5070, but Dawnwalker isn’t going to melt your PC. This is a game to lose yourself in its story and lore, not ogle over its bleeding edge visuals.

One of the highlights is the sound design and soundtrack. The soundtrack is absolutely fantastically composed by Nikola Kolodziejczyk, Piotr Musial, and Mikolai Stroinski who did The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine soundtrack. They absolutely killed it here bringing that 14th-century European folk traditional sound to life. They also had the Polish folk singer, Karolina Matuszkiewics, provide lead vocals throughout to help ground it all in the setting. There is plenty of range as well going from the large sweeping orchestral pieces to help setup the impactful moments to the fast paced combat music for the battles and bosses.

There are a lot of really good written characters in this game, but Iulian and Ambrus’s story is truly something I was invested in.

The voice acting is also very well done from the main actors. Coen’s actor, Will de Renzy-Martin, does a fantastic job throughout the story convincingly portraying all the insane stuff that Coen is going through. Obviously, there are some things are a bit strange with delivery when you dive into the extra dialogue and back into the main dialogue, and tones shift a bit, but that is less his fault and more on the directors. Outside of those issues, which plague vast majority of RPGs with branching dialogue, every here does fantastic. The absolute vitriol that you feel from the line delivery of some of these characters when discussing the Vrakhiri is so convincing. Even the side characters do a really good job of delivering their lines for quests as well. I was very impressed all around with the voice acting.

There is just so much to this world, to this story, and I am so impressed that Rebel Wolves was able to tell such an intriguing story within it. Being able to blend vampires, religion, and witchcraft together while also having great written characters for all of this it so impressive. Not being afraid of putting unique mechanics into a game that could scare off some players I absolutely applaud. The Blood of Dawnwalker is a masterclass in keeping to a theme, a setting, and idea, and it’s absolutely one of the best RPGs I’ve played not only this year, but ever.

The Blood of Dawnwalker is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Reviewed on PC with i7-12700kf, RTX 5070, and 32gb DDR5 RAM.

A copy of The Blood of Dawnwalker was provided by the publisher.