An RPG for The Witcher Followers

On this The Blood of Dawnwalker Assessment, we’re going to be speaking about one of the anticipated RPGs releasing in 2026, and one of the best sport I noticed at Gamescom final 12 months, The Blood of Dawnwalker. Coming from a brand new studio, Insurgent Wolves, which consists of builders who’ve labored on the Witcher sequence, The Blood of Dawnwalker guarantees to ship an engrossing RPG set in a low-fantasy medieval setting. On this evaluate, I’ll let you know whether or not Insurgent Wolves succeeded in delivering a memorable expertise or not, and whether or not it’s a day-one buy or to attend for a sale.

Story and Setting

The Blood of Dawnwalker is ready in medieval instances, AD 1347, someplace within the Carpathian Mountains of Europe. This can be a darkish period when a plague ravages many of the continent, compounding the tough residing situations beneath the tyranny of native lords. The participant takes on the function of Coen, the eldest son of a humble household residing within the fictional Vale Sangora.

As a narrative-heavy and story-driven sport, the story units the tone early on, with an intense cinematic the place Coen and his youthful sister, Lunka, are hunted down by troopers since she is suspected of carrying the plague. The scenario adjustments dynamically and radically when a faction generally known as the Vrakhir intervene, curing Lunka’s plague with their blood, and taking on the valley at giant, changing the present rulers.

The Vrakhir fail to show Coen, and as an alternative change him into one thing else solely: a Dawnwalker, who refuses to do their bidding. Together with his household captured, he units out on a journey towards the clock to avoid wasting them earlier than they’re killed. This units a tense tempo for the sport, forcing Coen to make fast, pointed selections that drive the plot ahead at each flip. He’ll meet many various characters with their very own goals and agendas, which typically go towards Coen’s personal. This triggers many conditions with complicated ethical tones, forcing Coen to make troublesome selections about whether or not to prioritize saving his household first or work in direction of taking down the Vrakhir to free all of the individuals of the valley.

These sorts of video games demand a dedication to nuanced writing to ship the emotional influence of morally ambiguous decisions. On this regard, Insurgent Wolves have carried out a unbelievable job and absolutely deploy a fancy, attention-grabbing, and compelling narrative that weaves seamlessly into facet quests, missions, and actions. This is a vital element that many video games miss and ought to be lauded as an achievement: it by no means appears like you might be simply doing random actions as an alternative of specializing in doing what you have to be doing when it comes to the narrative. Whether or not you might be exploring and killing monsters or specializing in destroying outposts of troopers loyal to the Vrakhir, all of them serve the aim of serving to Coen save his household from their impending dying.

Total, the story is the strongest level of the sport, and I discovered it emotionally participating and properly crafted, so I really feel it won’t disappoint the core viewers that comes searching for that interactive narrative expertise.

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Gameplay Assessment

RPG Mechanics

The Blood of Dawnwalker is an RPG with a heavy give attention to Coen as a personality and his mission to avoid wasting his household. As such, it has a powerful emphasis on dialogue decisions and making an attempt to make the absolute best ones to avoid wasting your loved ones, acquire allies, and strengthen your self to defeat the Vrakhir. However typically, in Witcher-like vogue, you have to decide between the lesser of a number of evils. The implementation of the morality challenges is completed by presenting you with conditions the place your personal pursuits are at odds with the advantage of the numerous, or incorporating layers to the “evil” facet so it’s much more grey than the typical sport writing.

Since that is such an essential a part of the stream of the sport, I’m very completely satisfied that as an alternative of straightforward decisions like figuring out whether or not the pink or blue faction will show you how to within the closing battle, your choices are extra nuanced and cascade into additional outcomes down the road. For instance, throughout a sure quest, Coen can resolve to drink from a magical supply to unlock a perk that can not be gained every other means, let a good friend drink to assist with their very own issues, or destroy the magical supply altogether as a result of its energy is a results of human sacrifices. The influence of those decisions on gamers will range from one particular person to a different, as more often than not, the outcomes of your decisions can’t be felt instantly within the sport world however affect the way you need Coen to behave as a personality.

One other energy of the dialogue decisions within the sport is that it permits you the liberty to roleplay Coen as a imply one that doesn’t take into account something in regards to the different individuals in any respect other than his personal agenda, or a very altruistic one that places the larger good above himself, or someplace in between. Since there isn’t any fame tied to your decisions that may lock you out of sure dialogue choices, you may make the selection that you just really feel becoming within the second. In consequence, you aren’t compelled to both be the “good particular person” or the “dangerous particular person” and makes Coen really feel extra like an precise free entity with conflicting decisions but in addition, it permits you to make “out of character” selections within the spur of the second akin to refusing to take human lives simply to feed your starvation for almost all of sport and at one level, you’ll be able to simply make the choice to empty the blood of somebody merely since you really feel prefer it. This gave me an amazing feeling of company, and it was one of the satisfying facets of the sport.

Along with dialogue decisions, Coen also can decide to method particular conditions in a number of methods, akin to speaking your means by means of outposts to realize info or just combating your means by means of all of the guards. I ought to observe for the manic homicidal among the many viewers that though you’ll be able to kill among the NPCs and lower down some harmless villagers and bystanders, there isn’t full freedom the place you’ll be able to kill everyone current on the map. Your assaults gained’t even hit some essential characters, as they’re essential to the story they usually should be current to make sure the storyline performs out.

There are some hiccups with the implementation of your freedom. For instance, some reactions or dialogues throughout quests are predetermined and written in a set means, and there may be situations the place Coen acts as if he already has the knowledge associated to a sure place or character, however he’s really experiencing them for the primary time throughout your playthrough. This can be a giveaway that there’s an “meant pathway” for the principle story to comply with, however gamers should not restricted to comply with that pathway and may expertise the world in an order of their very own selecting, which may create some small dissonance.

Like different narrative-driven RPGs, The Blood of Dawnwalker additionally has a number of completely different endings based mostly on the numerous decisions you’ve made alongside the way in which. As with many different RPGs earlier than, there are a number of completely different primary endings with many various resolutions for the assorted characters and tales that Coen encountered, and the result is affected based mostly on the alternatives made on his mission to free his household from the clutches of the Vrakhir.

Time Mechanic

A fairly distinctive side of the sport is that The Blood of Dawnwalker makes use of a time mechanic, and it’s intrinsically tied to the whole lot you do. This time mechanic acts as “stress” on your character, as you solely have a restricted period of time earlier than your loved ones dies, and plenty of of your actions and actions devour time, forcing you to make decisions on greatest method your playthrough. Every day and night time has eight segments of time every. There’s no timer ticking down, however your actions spend time, consuming it as a useful resource.

This can be a very attention-grabbing concept on paper that provides one other layer of decision-making on prime of the gameplay, however in execution it has some distinct flaws. For instance, along with the quests and actions, spending perk factors and unlocking new expertise may even price you treasured time.

So no matter how sluggish or how briskly you end a quest or an exercise, it is going to nonetheless price the identical quantity of in-game time and since studying expertise and perks may even price you “time segments”, I ended up rationing my time useful resource by limiting the variety of instances I upgraded my character and ignoring actions that aren’t instantly associated to the story in worry of the potential of lacking out on story parts.

Whereas this is sensible within the context of the narrative and to make the gamers really feel the load of the choices together with Coen, whether or not to give attention to gaining extra energy and higher loot or emphasize on saving the household, it feels limiting when it comes to pure gameplay and can endlessly annoy completionists. Personally, it doesn’t go away a great feeling when it’s important to resolve to deliberately ignore an exercise that you just’ve stumbled throughout whereas exploring an open world sport, not as a result of the exercise in query isn’t enjoyable or dangerous however since you are apprehensive that it’d forestall you from experiencing different elements of the sport. One can argue that making these selections is a part of this expertise, however this doesn’t take away from the truth that it removes a part of the enjoyable of exploring an open world sport.

Fight

The fight of Blood of Dawnwalker is easy and efficient, that includes directional swordplay for attacking or blocking that’s intermingled with varied sword expertise and skills. The simplicity comes from the controls: there’s a single assault button, a block button, and a dodge button which are then supported by casting as much as 4 potential and talent slots.

Whereas the directional enter for each assault and protection provides a layer to fight, supplying you with the chance to carry out excellent blocks by blocking within the right route on the final attainable second or assured essential strikes by executing a riposte in an indicated route together with your assault, it turns into repetitive fairly early on. Despite the fact that you’ll be able to change between the sword and claws throughout nighttime, your moveset stays the identical, and you might be principally doing the identical factor in each fight encounter. After all, the flexibility to make use of completely different witchcraft in the course of the day and vampirism expertise in the course of the night time provides variation to the fight, however the core of your method stays kind of the identical throughout your whole playthrough.

I performed the vast majority of my playthrough on truthful issue, which has a directional indicator for blocking when an enemy is attacking, and I simply ended up specializing in an arrow as an alternative of what the enemy is doing, making it really feel like I’m doing the identical factor again and again. The general expertise modified for the higher once I raised the issue stage and turned off the route indicator, forcing me to concentrate to what the enemies are literally doing, akin to whether or not they’re swinging their weapon from the left, proper, up, or down, to react accordingly, making fight immensely extra satisfying for me.

Whereas the fight issue and expertise may be adjusted based mostly in your preferences, it doesn’t change the truth that the sport suffers from a noticeable lack of enemy selection. It presents you with different-looking enemies to have interaction with, but it surely doesn’t really feel nice when an enemy wielding a sword, no matter whether or not they’re a bandit, a soldier, a specter or an undead warrior, all use the identical moveset and assaults. In consequence, regardless that what you might be seeing on display appears completely different, it appears like you might be combating towards the identical enemy sort all through the sport.

The ultimate level for fight is the customarily hotly debated enemy scaling mechanic accessible in lots of video games. The bottom stage enemies scale alongside together with your stage in order that it doesn’t really feel like you might be overpowered at any level in the course of the playthrough. Even at excessive ranges, if you find yourself utilizing varied expertise and a number of passives, you’ll not be reducing down any troopers with a single swing of your sword or a single swipe of your claws, making it really feel such as you’re not likely rising any extra highly effective in comparison with once you began out. This can be a double-edged sword, because it does hold the problem up, however it could actually additionally really feel unrewarding.

A degree to notice is that there isn’t any stealth system within the sport, and you may both keep away from enemies or face them head-on, however you can’t decide them off one after the other from the shadows.

Exploration

Exploration performs a vital function in any open world sport, and The Blood of Dawnwalker does a great job of constructing it attention-grabbing for gamers. The world hides a big number of locations to find, starting from historic tombs to prisons, however you additionally uncover facet quests and story parts just by venturing forth.

Whereas the entire world opens up and is accessible after the prologue, there’s a path the sport expects you to take, which is set by the extent of enemies in a selected area. Which means regardless that you’ll be able to go to a high-level area from the start of the sport, you’ll have a tough time, and even the best of enemies, akin to boars, can take you down with a single hit. That is frequent for a lot of open-world video games, and with a narrative-driven sport, it’s in all probability extra of a mechanic to encourage you to expertise the story in a extra linear method.

Design, Audiovisual and PerformanceVisuals

Concerning the visible design, The Blood of Dawnwalker completely captures the darkish medieval really feel with heavy inspiration from European Landscapes. Whereas the sport is ready in a fictional valley, it depicts a Bohemian panorama with lush, darkish forests, wood settlements and monasteries, together with Gothic Cathedrals and Castles. There are fantastical parts akin to monsters and witchcraft, however the designs should not overly romanticized and match properly with the folklore of the time interval. All the pieces within the universe is coherent and suits the aesthetics of the universe, delivering a devoted rendition of the narrative intent.

Audio

Audio high quality is a vital think about story-driven video games, and I’m completely satisfied to report that the voice performing is totally good. Will De Renzy-Martin does a unbelievable job as Coen, and is unquestionably one to control sooner or later. You possibly can really feel and listen to the feelings of the characters coming by means of their dialogue. Whereas the music was a bit disappointing given my extremely excessive expectations after video games like The Witcher or KCD2, it nonetheless delivers a great rating that matches the pacing of the sport and the story.

Efficiency

The optimization for The Blood of Dawnwalker is mostly good, and I solely had a single crash throughout a 30-hour playthrough. The sport ran easily on excessive settings even on a mid-range PC setup utilizing an i5-13400 CPU and a 3080 GPU and stuttered for a number of seconds solely when going from the stock menu or the map again to gameplay within the metropolis with numerous NPCs within the background. Even then, the stutter is just for a number of seconds, after which the sport retains a secure 60FPS. On my higher-end rigs, akin to my 4090 with an i9, the sport ran flawlessly and regarded completely gorgeous.

Sport Size, Replayability & Value Level

This can be a story-driven sport, so your mileage will range relying on whether or not you wish to see the outcomes of the completely different decisions you’ll be able to make all through your journey to avoid wasting Coen’s household. Every playthrough will take a median participant round 30-35 hours, and if you wish to see all of the attainable penalties and endings of the completely different selections Coen could make, you’ll have to do at the least two full playthroughs.

Even with saving earlier than a pivotal level and reloading to see the outcomes of a distinct choice, the implications of some selections should not obvious till the very finish, including narrative-driven replayability. You might also wish to make completely different time-allotment decisions, so you’ll be able to possible anticipate a second playthrough for those who loved your first.

With a worth of $69.99 USD, The Blood of Dawnwalker isn’t a finances sport, so contemplating you’ll be able to anticipate 30 hours of enjoyment and perhaps one other 30 for those who’re actually dedicated, the worth level choice will come right down to how a lot you might be craving a character-driven, story-focused RPG. Gamers who’re searching for open-world exploration or refined fight will possible really feel prefer it’s a stretch.

The Blood of Dawnwalker – Last Ideas

The Blood of Dawnwalker is certainly one of my most anticipated RPGs of 2026; it was my favourite sport at Gamescom 2025, and I’ve been eagerly trying ahead to it since then. This, after all, implies that I began the sport with a set of expectations for what this studio would ship given their previous work and my earlier interactions with the previews.

I’m glad to report that the sport met my expectations when it comes to characters and narrative, however I used to be left considerably dissatisfied with the fight and the stress that the time mechanic placed on my method to exploration.

Total, I really feel this is a wonderful first title for Insurgent Wolves that units the stage for the studio to develop and enhance with future productions. The Blood of Dawnwalker gained’t push the style to new heights and might not be the powerhouse sport that some could have anticipated, however I feel will probably be the primary of many wonderful titles from a model new studio that has a ton of expertise on this style, and I, for one, can’t wait to see what they do subsequent!