The Blood of the Dawnwalker: A challenging action RPG, with nits

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Playing The Blood of the Dawnwalker immediately brought to mind the first time I played The Witcher . It is clearly the work of Rebel Wolves, a studio composed of former CD Projekt RED developers who deeply love the mechanics they helped craft during their time there.

As a result, Dawnwalker benefits from that expertise, sticking close to the Witcher formula. From its dark fantasy setting to its sword combat, the only difference here is that the monster is you. A vampire that is hunting other vampires is always a good premise, and Dawnwalker succeeds in delivering, but a few rough edges keeps it from greatness.

The people of Vale Sangora were freed from an oppressive regime that took their coin and left them to be consumed by the plague, until a group of vampires saved them and promised protection and healing from the plague, in exchange for a regular supply of blood. Set somewhere in the Carpathian mountains, you play Coen, a normal young man who went against the vampire’s blood tax and in exchange, was left for dead. Deemed a failure by the ancient vampire who turned him, Coen turns into something far scarier, a Dawnwalker (human by day, vampire by night). Whatever you do, you only have 30 days to save your family from the vampires, and put an end to their bloody rule.

The lengthy prologue serves as a great tutorial for the mechanics, and is also a way to get comfortable with the world while building up Coen’s saga. My first playthrough saw me breeze through the prologue, barely taking up any of the initial sidequests.

On the second playthrough, I realised that building up the story a bit leads to different outcomes. Once Coen becomes the Dawnwalker, the world opens up to you not as one, but as two — day and night. By day, you solve quests using witchcraft and swordplay; by night, the claws and teeth come out and you have other opportunities that come to light.

Coen’s take is engrossing, courtesy the time mechanic and the way the game treats it as currency. For instance, do you spend time canoodling with a beautiful witch or do you rush to get medicinal herbs back to your family? Each decision carries its weight in time, and the quests you undertake also cost time.

The world is ideally open to tackle it however you want — you can spend time building up your powers or rush to the boss and end it. You can pull it off, because Dawnwalkers combat mechanics can take on monsters at any level, if you master its nuances.

The combat is tough, and this is coming from someone with over 400 hours in Elden Ring, one of the toughest games out there. Dawnwalker has your regular parries and attacks, but it also introduces directional parries, where you need to move your thumbstick in the direction of the attack, to then parry. Easy to pull off, but a challenge in the heat of battle.

Each enemy has a little ‘lock on’ icon, with corresponding arrows, showing you the parry direction, which if done right, grants you buffs and increases damage.