The Blood of Dawnwalker, a new IP from new studio Rebel Wolves (made up of ex-Witcher 3 and CD Projekt Red staff), is out now. It is always great getting new IPs, even if they can be a touch quirky in places, but it sets a good foundation for sequels etc.
I feel there aren’t a huge deal of decent vampire games out there. For me personally, Vampire: The Masquerade 1 & 2, Nosferatu (C64 & Spectrum), Vampyr, and of course both Castlevania and Legacy of Kain are the games that come to mind immediately. I was ecstatic seeing trailers for Dawnwalker, but now I have played it I kinda feel a bit let down and overwhelmed at the same time.
Set during the 14th century in the Carpathian Mountains, plague is sweeping across the valley, so the local ruler is culling anyone infected. In rolls Brencis with his two generals and a vampiric witch. The king and his cohorts are turned into a meal for the vampires, and Brencis states he is taking over the valley after saving Coen’s younger sister.
Fair enough — who would want to go up against a strong vampire with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth?! These vampires are not so much Dracula with his two fangs, but more like the fiends in 30 Days of Night with a Nosferatu-type styling. They are generally quite intimidating, and the only thing they want is a monthly sacrifice of a pint of blood from each villager and they will cure whatever ails them. A pretty much scary existence then!
Unfortunately Coen’s mother is ill, so in the prologue you have to head out and collect a stronger medicine, but also have a bit of time to help out a few other villagers beforehand. You get the medicine back home to stop your mother freaking out at the monthly blood-letting in the church, but trouble is afoot: the local resistance wants to mine silver so they can make weapons to damage Brencis and his crew.
It all goes horribly wrong and the resistance is quelled, and Coen’s family are taken by Brencis. You are given 30 days and nights to power up and try to rescue them, or they will be put to death and bled dry…
The time mechanic and combat are two of the main talking points with Blood of the Dawnwalker. First off, the combat is kinda similar but different to The Witcher series, with the directional attacks and various skills that go along with it. The main difference, though, is that once holding block, Coen becomes grounded and doesn’t move, as your left stick then blocks in the four directions. Now if you attack or dodge whilst still holding the block, you will no longer block any attacks, as when you stop whatever you have just done he doesn’t raise the block again unless you let go of the button and press and hold again. This did take some getting used to, but once I realised what was happening things did become a little easier and flowed a bit better. On the flip side, though, even if you have auto-block enabled and you are holding the block button, it doesn’t work at all.
There is also getting swarmed by enemies. I was in the woods south of the bridge and was attacked by a pack of wolves. Gradually working through the pack, a herd of boars then decided to join in — now this was getting silly. As I managed to gradually thin out the numbers, a bloody bear showed up and I got ended right there. It was just too much to juggle trying to sidestep non-blockable attacks, parrying directional attacks, and trying to keep track of what was going on. It is a bit unfair having animals and soldiers etc. all coming at you, and as you block one attack, in literally an instant another is hitting you from the sides and then another, and it feels like being inside a pinball machine!
The time mechanic is integral to the game. After all, with most RPGs like The Elder Scrolls series you find out what is going on, then do a few opening quests, and then are left to do your own thing even if it is a world-destroying event! All the jokes you see about one-hitting bosses because you have just gone off and maxed everything out beforehand! With Blood of the Dawnwalker everything has to be considered, no matter how small the task. 30 days and nights isn’t a great deal of time, and each twelve-hour slot is split into eight time pieces. In real-world time each segment is 90 minutes (12×60/8), which I found quite irksome. Once you leave the prologue area, one of the first things you will see is a guard outpost on the right side. Approaching this you will hear a clock ticking and a segment of the time starts flashing to tell you that this will take time to complete. So this particular guard post with 4 guys takes 90 minutes to do — yeah, 90 minutes to hack a few meatheads to pieces and loot the small clearing. That’s a bit excessive I thought, but oh well, better crack on.
I then help out the miller’s wife and he has been captured. I take the enemies out and get told off by the woman, but find out that the miller has been taken to the nearby camp with a broken tower. No time went by here at all because I wasn’t in a mission as such — go figure. I head off and enter the camp and have my weapons taken off me as I enter. Then I speak to the commander and then to the jailer, and after talking to a few folks he allows me to see the miller. No time has been taken at all at this point for this quest. In the cell area, which is underground down a flight of stairs behind a closed door, a guard is there complaining about inmates puking. I talk to the miller but he won’t give me info on the resistance because the guard is there, so I choose the option to whisper. The guard gets peeved at me and attacks…… great, no weapon, but what is that — a sword sitting on the table (I tried to steal it but got attacked so loaded a save game)!
I try to pick it up but because combat has started it won’t let me, so after numerous attempts I manage to punch out the guard. No sword clashes or shouting, and not forgetting behind a wooden door in the cellar, but the camp has heard the ruckus and now every guard is out for my blood, and it is during the day so no vampire claws or powers here. So I reload again and choose the first option to distract the guard by saying the inmate is going to be sick, which will take two time segments off me. Now bear in mind that there has been no time taken up to this point, so the guard storming off to find a replacement and the guy telling me to meet someone from the resistance near the bridge took three hours!! Yeah, a few sentences spoken and the guard storming off took three hours of my time. I was rather shocked, and of course time keeps ticking.
So as you can probably gather, the combat and time mechanic just aren’t for me, which is strange, especially the time mechanic, given little over a week ago I finished the excellent Persona 3 Reload, which also has a time mechanic where days are literally split into 3 parts. But when you are getting time segments taken off you just for levelling up or doing a simple quest, I feel it is overly harsh. I got used to the combat but cannot say I enjoy it in any way.
Overall I am gutted, as I love the setting and the world-building as well as the main characters both good and evil, but having that time limit feels like you have the sword of Damocles hanging over your head. It feels like you cannot get too involved with the world as rescuing your family is of the utmost importance. If you don’t save them then yeah, you don’t get the best ending and the game carries on with no time mechanic and becomes a story about vengeance.
Like I said, this game just isn’t for me and the score I give reflects my personal thoughts, as I know many people love it. You can see the love for the lore and attention to detail Rebel Wolves have poured into this game. For their first game they have knocked it out of the park.
Unfortunately I just don’t like the mechanics one bit.
Thanks to our friends at Bandai Namco Entertainment for the review code.
FINAL SCORES:
|
GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT |
8 7 6 5 |
| OVERALL | 6.5 |
The Blood of Dawnwalker Resynced is out now on Xbox Series X, PS5, and PC/Steam.
Important info:
- Developer: Rebel Wolves
- Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
- Players: Single player
The Blood of Dawnwalker – Launch Trailer
Retro at heart and lover of all things ’80s, especially the computers, the music and the awesome movies and TV shows! Crazy huge retro gaming collection spanning the ’80s and ’90s with hundreds of tapes, discs and carts for various machines on top of a 600+ strong Steam library that is ever-growing. No I am not a serial hoarder, just a dedicated retro gamer!