I had the pleasure of enjoying 4 hours of The Blood of Dawnwalker final week—and whereas I am unable to say it will knock my socks off simply but (RPGs that declare to have impactful selections simply require extra sitdown time to show their value) it has completely received its enamel into me, as a result of I skilled one thing uncommon: I ignored a quest. On goal. And I favored it.
You play as Coen, a humble but hero-coded villager who, over the course of the prologue (and the sport’s first day, extra on that later) is was a titular dawnwalker, due to your incidental siring inside a silver mine. A human by day, a bloodthirsty monster by evening.
Your moment-to-moment dispatchment of corrupt guards and compulsory wolves (plus the occasional bear) may be very action-RPG normal, with the pleasant inclusion of a For Honor-style directional block and assault system with timed parries and direction-based counter-hits, with some choices to only auto-attack in case you do not need to cope with all of that.
This method wobbles a bit in crowds of enemies, however that is possible only a results of not with the ability to collect sufficient ability factors throughout my play session to get into the sport’s potential system, which is a bit more normal RPG—flinging mud in your opponent’s eye, vampiric teleports, bites, and so forth.
I haven’t got a lot else to say in regards to the fight, apart from it is simply fairly competent with some tough spots, shining in duels and being simply serviceable elsewhere, no less than within the early recreation. The a part of The Blood of Dawnwalker that basically intrigues me is its time administration system—as a result of Coen’s received a deadline to satisfy.
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Tick, tock
After the prologue, Coen has 30 days and 30 nights to avoid wasting his household from the vampire lord Brancis, who has taken an entirety of Vale Sangora hostage—on the plus facet, he does not cost taxes. Sadly, he does ask for blood, and can cull members of his cattle who he thinks are weak. This sucks, each actually and figuratively, for everybody concerned.
This core system feeds into the remainder of the sport’s mechanics, even the fight. Somewhat than conserving a stopwatch working, The Blood of Dawnwalker splits up your days and nights into time segments, a kind of pseudo-currency—in that you have solely a restricted quantity of it—that you could spend on finishing quests, scouting areas, and so forth.
The proof of idea lies within the prologue, which had me making fascinating roleplay selections that I would not have in any other case made in a bathroom normal RPG. See, I am a little bit of a completionist. I need to go down each hall, expertise each dialogue choice, and choose up each leaf and lamb offal I presumably can earlier than shifting on.
However I did not do that in my preview, as a result of I wanted to get drugs for my mom and I solely had a single day to do it. This led me not solely to show down a beautiful witch’s guide membership invitation, sadly spurning romance so my mum would not, y’know, die. However I additionally let a villager hurling insults at me get away and not using a beating. Usually I’d have gotten my revenge, however with the clock ticking down, it felt like a literal waste of time.
In a chat I had with recreation director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, he stated that is all very a lot on goal: “The thought was so as to add this sense of urgency to the sport … Once you’re enjoying, you might be extra conscious of what is occurring round you, and also you’re selecting the content material, and you’ve got extra feelings linked if you play.”
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It is genuinely actually fascinating, as a result of it forces you to weigh up your precise priorities. If all my little duties are simply ready for me to come back again for them, I will clearly spend time with the cool witch girl. But when NPC lives are on the road? I will sadly say no—after which instantly have my instincts verified as two steps from her door, a person’s brother had gone lacking, and I used to be instantly in a position to save him due to my determination to not play hooky with the native potion peddler.
This impression in your roleplaying is by far probably the most fascinating a part of this time-based system, however there are some cool methods it impacts recreation mechanics, too: Vampires solely drink blood, so you possibly can’t eat common meals to heal your accidents throughout the evening—swapping up your playstyle from hoarding snacks to biting necks.
Through the day, you do not have vampiric powers. Sure gear is barely useful to your human or vampire types, respectively, to the purpose the place you get two completely different gear loadouts that auto-swap when the solar units and rises. And the world shifts round a bit of, as nicely.
As an illustration, I made the tactical error of diving into an enemy camp to rescue a prisoner simply within the nick of time—nonetheless, the second I did so, daybreak broke and the camp gained reinforcements, which means I needed to battle my method out of it, too.
The primary level of this method, nonetheless, is to create an internet of motion and consequence that spans the whole lot of the sport. And within the prologue, no less than, it holds up tremendously nicely.
Gosh darn these vampires
The Blood of Dawnwalker has an opportunity to drag off its core premise with flying colors—and if it does, it is perhaps some of the intriguing open world RPGs of the last decade, one the place you are not simply ticking off targets on a world map guidelines, however making deliberate, calculated selections to try to min-max your odds of saving your loved ones.
To do this, the total model might want to maintain giving fascinating webs of alternative and penalties to the participant, conserving the stress on whereas inflicting your selections to have a significant, lasting impression on the sport’s story. Simpler stated than executed, however I am optimistic to date.
Even when it does not pull it off, although, The Blood of Dawnwalker goes to be very fascinating, and in a way, that is already sufficient to have me thirsty to play extra. I will vastly desire a barely wonky expertise with distinctive concepts to a mediocre recreation that is simply okay—and The Blood of Dawnwalker’s already had me switching up my regular completionist instincts into one thing much more immersive.
