The Blood of Dawnwalker Review: Witcher at Home, and That's a Compliment
A vampire RPG from former Witcher devs with great combat, a clever day-and-night split, and a little too much jank for $70.
The Blood of Dawnwalker snuck up on us. It wasn't on anyone's most-anticipated list. Then, about a week before launch, the reviews started rolling in and were overall fairly positive. Morbid curiosity turned into real hype. When was the last good vampire game? Vampires are one of the coolest supernatural creatures ever dreamed up. They turn into mist, they have super strength, they bite people. Why don't we have more great games about them?
So we all dove in. Ace rolled credits twice, Ryan is more than 20 hours in, and Josh got about 14 hours deep during the busiest stretch of his year. That's three play times and three angles.
One heck of an opening
All three of us came out of the opening going, "Did you see that?" It sets the stage brilliantly. The vampires, the Vrakhiri, have taken over the valley and walled it off, twisting the local religion into something very dark. You play Coen, who isn't vampire-born (yet; give it a few years and someone will make Vampireborne). He becomes a Dawnwalker: human by day, vampire by night. And you have 30 days to save your family.
Ryan gave the start of the game a straight 10 out of 10. Coen himself? He's no Geralt. He's serviceable, never annoying, but he isn't going to be anyone's favorite character of the year.
The combat is the star
If you've seen Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, you'll recognize the directional system: watch which angle the enemy swings from and block to that side. A small indicator on your reticle helps, and it disappears on the highest difficulty. Once you get the feel for it, you can read attacks without it.
I sought out fights so I could get as many people around me as possible and dodge roll and pocket sand and blood curse them and parry everything. It's punishing, man.
That's the sign of a good combat system: we went looking for fights. It's fully skill-based. Josh spent about an hour taking down a camp of five soldiers way above his level, purely by parrying. It's a skill based system that rewards learning it and allows taking on challenges above your level.
Some reviewers said combat becomes trivial once you master it. Our response:
What do you think is going to happen if you master it? Oh no, I'm too good at the video game.
A couple of real misses, though. There's no stealth, which is wild for a vampire game. Ryan put it perfectly: you can turn into smoke, so why can't you poof in, take a guy out and poof back out? Weapon variety is also thin. It's mostly a sword with a green hilt versus a sword with a slightly faster swing. Ace swears by the vampire claws.
Day and night
This is the big hook, and it splits the room a bit. By day you're human Coen with witchcraft. By night your vampire powers come out: wall-walking, teleporting to bite enemies, and a wolf form that gets you across the open world quickly.
Ace much preferred nights for the traversal, and he thought the witchcraft felt underbaked, like an afterthought. Ryan loved how the cycle resets you, so just as you settle into one mode, the sun flips and you're reinvigorated in the other. Josh found that the daytime is where the game feels most like The Witcher: wandering, talking to people, doing quests. Nighttime is when you chase the main story.
They took it a step too far in places. Day Coen and night Coen have separate inventories (and for a while, switching left you naked). Learning a skill also costs time, on top of the skill point and the skill book you had to find.
Don't fear the 30 days
That time limit is scaring people off, and it shouldn't. Most people we know finished with days to spare. Ace had about 10 days left, enough to load back in and see another ending. Our advice:
Play it like you're not even on a time limit and you'll be fine.
The jank
Here's what keeps it from greatness. Ace's game crashed every 30 to 40 minutes, usually going into cut scenes. Ryan's PC choked whenever he tried to record or stream, and he nearly quit. Josh had no crashes but saw plenty of clipping, rough hair, hitches while the world loads, and collision that snags you on tree stumps mid-fight. Ace once slid down a mountain and got launched into the stratosphere. Steam Deck? Don't.
The VGP take
Ace loved how much your choices matter. Every little decision feeds into the ending, and he gave it an 8. Ryan and Josh both landed on 8.5. Josh's line, with love: if The Witcher 3 is a 10, The Blood of Dawnwalker is Temu Witcher at 8.5. It's clearly following that blueprint and nails a good chunk of it.
Is it worth $70? It's a new studio's first game, and it needed a bit more time in the oven. Ryan says $50, Ace says $50 to $60, and Josh says $60 is the sweet spot. If you're hungry for a deep, 35-hour vampire RPG and you'll actually see it through, the full price is defensible. Either way, this is a new IP worth watching, and a Blood of Dawnwalker 2 could be something special.