Have to know
What’s it? A Witchery vampire RPG with a darkish coronary heart
Launch date September 3, 2026
Count on to pay $70 / £60
Developer Insurgent Wolves
Writer Bandai Namco
Reviewed on RTX 3060 (laptop computer), Ryzen 5 5600H, 16GB RAM
Steam Deck TBC, however unlikely to be a great expertise
Hyperlink Steam
35 hours into The Blood of Dawnwalker I would already witnessed the aftermath of many barbaric slayings and village razings. I would cleared out a web site of industrial-scale slaughter, and partaken in an obscene medieval tackle The Working Man. I would sucked numerous kiloliters of blood from people, rats and monsters alike. However by some means, this exceptionally morbid horror RPG nonetheless had one other novel solution to make me wince.
I used to be exploring the depths of a troll-infected cave deep within the Carpathians. Coen of Laslea—me, the player-character—and his sketchy companion have been searching for somebody necessary. I hardly anticipated them to be residing effectively, however the best way I discovered them, pinned to a wall and half-consumed, exceeded my expectations for mainstream videogame cruelty.
For 2 years this human-shaped creature had been always eaten alive by grotesque kobalds. By dint of being a vampire, their flesh all the time grew again. They have been a wall-mounted, self-replenishing feast of human meat, misplaced in a community of caves the place they have been unlikely to ever be discovered.
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The Blood of Dawnwalker is without doubt one of the finest blockbuster motion RPGs I’ve performed for years, in all probability since Elden Ring, nevertheless it’s unrelentingly violent and bleak to the purpose of typically being unintentionally humorous. There isn’t any hope in Insurgent Wolves’ blood-slurried tackle 1300s Romania, the place brutal feudalism has been supplanted by populist vampirism. The Witcher 3 seems like daytime melodrama by comparability. I respect its severity, however I did yearn for a gutful of the Transylvanian white wine crowding my stock.
Eerie vrakhiri
Once we meet him, Coen is an everyman peasant working the land in Laslea. Years in the past, Skender Dragosti, the murderous lord who previously dominated over Laslea and the higher Vale Sangora area, had been conquered by Brencis, a century-old warfaring vrakhir, or vampire, sick of watching all that blood go to waste.
I can boil the Brencis’ blood, quickly extract their souls, scream at them till they’re motionless, or possess them, all the higher to show them to my aspect.
Brencis will not be as outwardly merciless as Skender however his method of industrially harvesting the blood of Sangora’s peasants is frowned upon by some, whereas for others it is a affordable value to pay for the execution of their former oppressor. However when the slightest trace of resistance is detected in Laslea, Brencis and his males swoop on the village, raze it, and abduct Coen’s household. The Blood of Dawnwalker is about making an attempt to get them again and, to various levels relying in your selections and temperament, additionally taking the combat to the vrakhiri.
Which is less complicated than it would in any other case be for a peasant, as a result of Coen quickly turns into a Dawnwalker: vampire by evening and common human by day. On this manner, Insurgent Wolves has its cake and eats it too. Coen can combat with swords always, however witchcraft and vampire powers can solely be utilized by day and evening respectively. He would not have to cower within the shadows at sunset. He is a really versatile bloodsucker.
It is nice enjoyable to slay Brencis’ males. Coen’s swordplay is much like Kingdom Come’s directional method: I’ve to concentrate to how my foe is swinging all the higher to dam in that path, after which exploit any weak spot this opens up. This may be gruelling within the realism-focused Kingdom Come, nevertheless it’s far more approachable right here, due to an icon signalling each incoming transfer that is seen irrespective of how shut or far the enemy is (this may be toggled off at increased difficulties).
(Picture credit score: Insurgent Wolves)
It is also extra approachable as a result of I can set off hectic waves of spectral crows in between strikes, or warp behind my enemies to suck their blood and replenish my well being. I can boil the Brencis’ blood, quickly extract their souls, scream at them till they’re motionless, or possess them, all the higher to show them to my aspect.
Like The Witcher 3 earlier than it, The Blood of Dawnwalker borrows quite a bit from the quietly radical fight method taken by Rocksteady’s Batman video games. Like Geralt of Rivia, Coen “sticks” to and circle-strafes his major goal, however not like Geralt of Rivia, Coen’s swordplay is precision-oriented and gratifying, albeit possibly a bit too straightforward for hardened gamers. The lock on system will be imprecise—it is all the time a ache on uncommon events after I need to select an enemy slightly than let the focusing on select for me—however I really went out of my solution to combat individuals and monsters, slightly than keep away from battle like I assumed I might (and which I principally cannot, anyway). It helps that Coen’s ability timber are riddled with some actually overpowered delights.
Days gone
Nevertheless it takes time to hone these expertise, to not point out all the opposite minor and main perks and buffs in every of Dawnwalker’s three ability timber. And time is framed as a vital foreign money in The Blood of Dawnwalker. Coen’s days are separated into 16 items of time, and almost all the things I do—from finishing main quests by way of to levelling up my bloodsucking prowess—spends a number of items.
And my quest is pressing: Brencis’ coronation happens in 30 days, and that is my deadline for saving my household. After that they are accomplished for. Little surprise I do not need to fetch slivovitz for considered one of my dad’s outdated warfare mates.
This stress feels overwhelming at first. Ought to I prioritise assassinating Brencis’ three vassals, all the higher to weaken the regime for a (presumed) closing showdown? Is it actually a good suggestion to spend my time doing the bidding of native witch and love curiosity Anca? As Dawnwalker’s early hours wore on, a handful of different urgencies emerged to complicate how Coen ought to spend his treasured time, not least the truth that some duties can solely be accomplished by day or evening.
By day 20 my Coen felt nearly unbeatable, and I had a small handful of promising methods to take the combat to Brencis.
The idea is much like Persona and Majora’s Masks, however the best way it is applied is the glue holding Dawnwalker’s jumble of acquainted elements neatly collectively. It encourages a extra tactical method to questing than I am used to in motion RPGs: I typically discovered myself looking my journal and plotting out how I would make the following couple of days matter. This did not all the time contain heroics. For instance, by day I would purchase up manuals from nine-to-five distributors, all the higher to study new expertise, as a result of spending ability factors passes time. By evening, with my vampiric shadowstep means, I might entry rooftops or cliff cabinets inaccessible to mortals. Generally my plans can be waylaid by the sudden emergence of a time delicate drawback.
The calendar system certain does apply urgency to Coen’s activity, at the least at first. Urgency is sort of all the time baked into the narrative of blockbuster RPGs, nevertheless it’s problematic to replicate that urgency in precise gameplay programs. Positive I need to save the world, and certain I need for my actions to matter. However I would additionally like to choose some nirnroot and play some Gwent, thanks very a lot. There’s a motive the Pathologic video games stay a distinct segment concern.
Insurgent Wolves tries to sidestep this drawback in a few methods. First, the participant is all the time amply warned earlier than embarking on a time-spending exercise: I can waste as many IRL hours as I like harvesting St John’s-wort and the place of the solar or moon will not change. It takes me knowingly triggering the passage of time for my treasured hours to be spent.
Second, the stress is essentially illusory. By day 20 my Coen felt nearly unbeatable, and I had a small handful of promising methods to take the combat to Brencis. Perhaps I might have fetched that outdated bastard his slivovitz in spite of everything.
However illusory or not—and it will probably rely on how a lot you drag your toes—the calendar system does give Dawnwalker a higher sense of selection and consequence than most of its huge funds motion contemporaries. It is largely as much as me how I will save my household, after I’ll do it, through which order I will take measures to make it simpler, or if I will trouble in any respect. However I am unable to deny it was deflating to find that every one my cautious clock strategising was in the end for nothing: just about all the things of any significance will be tied up effectively earlier than the 30 day deadline, with plenty of frivolous traipsing round in addition.
Regardless of this, it seems like Insurgent Wolves realized the appropriate classes from Breath of the Wild or, earlier than it, Gothic: Dawnwalker gives an express objective after which gestures vaguely at its world. Finishing quests can both educate or strengthen Coen, however he has to seek out them first, and that is the place gamers’ experiences could differ. I used to be on day 21, and just about prepared to stay it to Brencis, when a colleague let slip that there was a significant companion whose presence and attendant quest had eluded me for 30 hours.
Quests differ in measurement and curiosity. Some are lengthy and winding; others quantity to “kill these guys” or “comply with these glowing yellow hints to an encounter”. I undoubtedly obtained sick of trying to find yellow hints, simply as I did rotating an object for factors of revelatory curiosity. However I by no means obtained sick of combating, nor did I ever lose curiosity within the Vale of Sangora itself.
All in vein
Perhaps I am only a sucker for European miserablism, however The Blood of Dawnwalker’s valley of bloodletting is considered one of my favorite open worlds since The Witcher 3. Its tackle 1300s Romania is subtly daubed with fantasy, however like CD Projekt, Insurgent Wolves has a knack for gorgeously downcast panoramas. Although Coen can transfer at lightning pace by dint of his vampire powers (by evening he may even rework right into a galloping wolf), I typically discovered myself slow-walking the fir forest backroads and alpine highlands of Sangora, taking in sights harking back to Caspar David Friedrich’s panorama work or the covers of Tolkien-themed black metal albums. Although it’s not resistant to open world busywork, Dawnwalker at the least is aware of its open world must really feel like a world and never a sandbox of mini-games. It’s a spot I inhabited, slightly than a map I traversed in direction of quests and rewards.
And like The Witcher 3, Insurgent Wolves retains a tighter leash on its fantastical leanings than most fantasy studios. Supernatural themes usually puncture the grim and rugged realism—that is, after all, a vampire sport—however the fantasy parts solely serve to stress the humdrum nastiness of the Sangora peasants’ lot: this can be a world of hand-to-mouth poverty, tyrannous cruelty and materialised superstition. The latter virtually seems like a delirious symptom of the previous. I extremely doubt Dawnwalker is an genuine rendering of 1300s peasant life in Romania or elsewhere, however it’s decided to seize the phantasmagoric thriller of pre-enlightenment, and the horror and indignity of an oppressed individuals, with out resorting to folksiness or misplaced nostalgia.
My allegiances—or slightly, my notion of who was the worst of assorted competing evils—have been in fixed flux.
Boy, is that this an unremittingly pessimistic expertise. Decisions are virtually invariably between two evils. Quests transfer inexorably in direction of unhealthy or worse endings. Not often did I ever choose a dialogue choice with full confidence that it was the appropriate or magnanimous factor to say. Actually, by the top, I had my Coen appearing very a lot at odds with how I envisioned him within the early hours. My allegiances—or slightly, my notion of who was the worst of assorted competing evils—have been in fixed flux. I skilled three endings (there are extra) and never considered one of them supplied any hope.
And that is what I like most about The Blood of Dawnwalker. Within the opening hours it clocks as an virtually on-the-nose allegory for twentieth century European historical past—Brencis equals incoming communism, Skender equals outgoing monarchy—however by the top it registers as a extra universally human story concerning the vile extremes of energy, the powerlessness of its topics, and the latter’s susceptibility to persuasion when nothing feels actual besides tragedy and toil. It is also—and I discover myself typically forgetting this facet completely—a vampire story. None of its narrative elements are particularly authentic, however they cohere into one thing viscerally affecting. There isn’t any morally righteous solution to clear up the issues of this world.
It is a very effectively optimised sport too. On my unimpressive system I used to be usually in a position to keep on with 60 fps on low at 1080p, and even at these settings I discovered Dawnwalker attractive.
Life drain
It is comprehensible to really feel exhausted after enjoying Dawnwalker, regardless of its comparatively modest 40 hour runtime. It may be so doggedly depressing that you just simply should snort at it, and I did snort often, however not for the uncommon and minor sparks of sunshine. When these happen, it seems like being shaken from a disturbing dream. I principally laughed for shock at its audacity. There aren’t any heroes right here. All the pieces, all the time, sucks. I realized nothing, however I felt quite a bit.
Blood of Dawnwalker is an efficient piece of worldbuilding and storytelling then, nevertheless it would not make good on its promise as an revolutionary piece of RPG design. Perhaps Insurgent Wolves anxious that too many gamers would fall afoul of the passage of time and thus loosened its severity. Actually, the prologue implies a higher position for this method than what eventuates. Ultimately, Dawnwalker would not have the braveness to permit this method to indicate its fangs. I really feel like if it did, we’d have a contemporary traditional on our fingers.
It additionally suffers some commonplace open world trappings. There are many icons denoting virtually similar duties. There are Ubisoft-style towers to scale. The liberty of quick journey tends to decrease the dimensions of the world with time (why would not quick journey incur a time value?).
However I point out these shortcomings out of a way of virtually begrudging duty: regardless of its apparent indebtedness to The Witcher, The Blood of Dawnwalker is a distinctly dismal horror RPG whose unyielding darkness and sense of benighted journey will depart extra of an impression than any of its flaws. I hope this sequence will get the possibility to return with a fiercer urge for food for my blood.