There is something wonderfully refreshing about The Blood of Dawnwalker. In a genre increasingly packed with enormous open worlds, hundreds of pointless map markers and enough side quests to make you wonder whether the main character has ever actually had a day off, Rebel Wolves has taken a rather different approach.
Instead of simply throwing you into another gigantic fantasy playground and telling you to do absolutely everything, The Blood of Dawnwalker puts pressure on you from the moment you begin. Time matters. Your choices matter. Your relationships matter. Most importantly, you simply cannot do everything.
And that last part is probably the thing I appreciate most.
Developed by Rebel Wolves and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment, The Blood of Dawnwalker is an open-world dark fantasy action RPG set in a grim version of 14th-century Europe. You play as Coen, a young man who has been transformed into a Dawnwalker, giving him access to supernatural abilities while forcing him to exist between humanity and vampirism. The entire game revolves around trying to save his family while dealing with the growing threat of the vampire forces controlling the region.
It is a seriously ambitious first game from Rebel Wolves, and while it certainly isn’t perfect, there is something here that kept pulling me back into its dark world.
A World Where Time Actually Matters
The biggest idea behind The Blood of Dawnwalker is its time system.
You don’t have an endless amount of time to wander around completing every possible objective. Coen’s family is in danger, and the game gives you a limited amount of time in which to act. Taking on quests and making decisions moves the clock forward, meaning that helping one person can quite literally mean that you no longer have time to help someone else.
At first, this sounds like a gimmick.
It isn’t.
It changes how you approach the game.
Normally, an RPG gives you a quest, you accept it, wander off for six hours, clear three enemy camps, collect seventeen herbs and eventually remember what you were supposed to be doing in the first place.
The Blood of Dawnwalker constantly reminds you that time is passing.
That makes decisions feel more meaningful because you cannot simply assume that everything will still be waiting for you whenever you fancy getting around to it.
The downside is that the system doesn’t always feel quite as transformative as the concept promises. Some of the choices have less impact on the wider world than you might expect from the game’s premise, something that has also been noted in other reviews.
Even so, I would rather see a developer attempt something this ambitious than simply copy the same open-world formula we’ve been playing for the last decade.
Day and Night Change Everything
The other major hook is the relationship between Coen’s human and vampire forms.
During the day, Coen remains closer to his human side, relying on weapons, magic and more traditional combat techniques. At night, his vampiric abilities come into play, giving him access to supernatural powers that fundamentally change how you approach encounters.
This is where The Blood of Dawnwalker is at its most interesting.
You aren’t simply waiting for nighttime because the lighting looks prettier. The world, abilities and possibilities change depending on which side of Coen’s nature is currently in control.
There is a constant temptation to embrace the power of the vampire because, let’s be honest, ripping through enemies with supernatural abilities is considerably more entertaining than behaving yourself.
But the game continually reminds you that becoming more powerful comes with consequences.
That struggle between humanity and monstrosity gives Coen a reason to exist beyond simply being another RPG protagonist who happens to have a fancy skill tree.
Combat Is Brutal Rather Than Complicated
Combat in The Blood of Dawnwalker isn’t trying to reinvent the action RPG, but it doesn’t need to.
Human combat gives you a more traditional approach, while your vampire abilities provide a much more aggressive alternative. The two forms complement one another and encourage experimentation rather than forcing you into a single approach.
When everything comes together, combat feels satisfyingly nasty.
There is a physicality to the attacks that suits the game’s dark setting, and the vampire abilities in particular give encounters a completely different flavour.
There are, however, moments where the combat starts to show its limitations.
Enemy variety isn’t always as strong as it could be, and some encounters can begin to feel repetitive. This is one of those areas where The Blood of Dawnwalker occasionally reminds you that this is the first game from a new studio rather than the latest twenty-million-pound sequel from a developer that has spent twenty years refining its combat system.
That isn’t necessarily a criticism of the ambition. It is simply an area where the game could have gone further.
The Story Is Where Dawnwalker Shines
If there is one thing that keeps the entire experience moving forward, it is the story.
The setup is immediately interesting. Medieval Europe is already being torn apart by conflict and the Black Death, and into that chaos comes a supernatural threat that has been waiting for an opportunity to emerge. Vampires are no longer simply hiding in the shadows. They are taking advantage of a civilisation already pushed to breaking point.
That gives the setting a wonderfully oppressive atmosphere.
This isn’t a colourful fantasy adventure where everyone is having a lovely time despite the occasional dragon attack.
People are scared.
The world feels dangerous.
And Coen’s personal situation makes everything feel considerably more urgent.
The game’s strongest characters are also important here. The supporting cast gives the world more personality and prevents the story from becoming nothing more than another tale about killing increasingly large monsters.
There are choices throughout the story, alliances to form and people to help or abandon. The developers have clearly built the game around the idea that the player should have to live with decisions rather than simply being presented with an obvious good or evil button.
That doesn’t mean every choice has the enormous consequences the marketing might lead you to expect, but the overall structure is still one of the game’s strongest features.
An Open World Worth Exploring
The world itself is another major strength.
Rather than relying purely on endless procedural filler, Rebel Wolves has created a handcrafted environment covering forests, plains, swamps, mountains, settlements and ancient ruins.
There is a real sense of place here.
The combination of medieval architecture, grim forests, ruined locations and supernatural elements gives The Blood of Dawnwalker an identity of its own.
It isn’t simply trying to be another generic fantasy RPG.
The vampire mythology gives the world a darker personality, while the historical setting helps ground the fantasy elements.
And thankfully, the game doesn’t feel like it needs to cover every square inch of the map with activities just to justify calling itself an open-world RPG.
That works particularly well with the time system. You’re encouraged to explore, but you’re also encouraged to think about whether you really have time to do it.
The Unreal Engine 5 Problem
Visually, The Blood of Dawnwalker can look fantastic.
The environments have plenty of detail, lighting can create an excellent atmosphere and the combination of medieval architecture and dark fantasy makes the game particularly easy on the eyes when everything is behaving itself.
Unfortunately, the PC version has had some rough edges.
The game is built using Unreal Engine 5 and supports DLSS, AMD FSR and Intel XeSS, although the PC implementation has some limitations. Current PC testing has also highlighted that there is no DLSS Multi Frame Generation support, despite the game supporting NVIDIA DLSS Frame Generation.
There have also been reports of stuttering in windowed and borderless modes, shader-compilation crashes and other technical problems that the developers have acknowledged through their known-issues information.
That is something worth keeping in mind if you’re playing on PC.
When Dawnwalker is running properly, it looks excellent. When it isn’t, some of the technical roughness can pull you straight out of the experience.
Thankfully, this is exactly the sort of thing that can improve through patches rather than being an unavoidable design flaw.
The Biggest Problem: It Doesn’t Always Deliver on Its Own Promise
This is where I think The Blood of Dawnwalker becomes particularly interesting.
The game constantly talks about choice, consequence and urgency.
Those systems are absolutely present, but there are moments where you expect the consequences to reach further than they actually do.
You can make an important decision and expect the entire world to react, only for the game to continue along a relatively familiar path.
That doesn’t make the choices pointless. It simply means the gap between what The Blood of Dawnwalker promises and what it can actually deliver becomes noticeable.
And considering the game is trying to sell itself on player agency, that’s an important distinction.
There are also some animations and enemy encounters that feel less polished than the rest of the experience. Other reviewers have highlighted similar concerns, particularly around repetitive enemies, animation quality and the impact of some choices.
But This Is an Impressive First Step
It is worth remembering what Rebel Wolves has actually achieved here.
This isn’t another sequel with twenty years of accumulated systems and technology behind it.
This is the studio’s debut.
And it has created a full-scale open-world action RPG with a distinctive setting, a strong central concept, two different gameplay approaches, a time-based narrative structure and a world that is genuinely interesting to explore.
That is bloody impressive.
There are rough edges, absolutely. There are systems that don’t quite reach the potential of their ideas, and there are technical issues that need attention.
But beneath all of that is a game with personality.
And personality is becoming increasingly rare.
The Blood of Dawnwalker isn’t afraid to make you uncomfortable. It doesn’t constantly pat you on the back and tell you that you’re the hero. It gives you power, asks what you’re willing to sacrifice for it, and then puts a clock over your head while you make the decision.
That’s a pretty damn good foundation for a new RPG series.
Final Verdict
The Blood of Dawnwalker is an ambitious, dark and surprisingly refreshing RPG that doesn’t quite achieve everything it sets out to do, but gets enough right to make its debut difficult to ignore.
Rebel Wolves has created a world that I genuinely wanted to spend time in, and the combination of vampires, medieval Europe, supernatural powers and a ticking clock gives the game a personality that many modern open-world RPGs desperately lack.
It isn’t flawless.
The technical problems need work, the combat can become repetitive and the game’s biggest selling point – meaningful choice and consequence – doesn’t always hit as hard as it should.
But when it works, it really works.
The atmosphere is fantastic, the vampire mechanics are entertaining and the time system forces you to think about what you’re doing rather than simply vacuuming up every quest marker on the map.
Most importantly, The Blood of Dawnwalker feels like the beginning of something.
And if Rebel Wolves can take what it has built here and push those ideas even further in whatever comes next, I will absolutely be interested in seeing where this series goes.
The Blood of Dawnwalker Trailer
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The game was provided to us for the express purpose of reviewing.
Written by myself then edited and formed by my partner.
Reviewed and played on PC.
Review Summary
What is The Blood of Dawnwalker?
The Blood of Dawnwalker is an open-world dark fantasy action RPG from Rebel Wolves and Bandai Namco. You play as Coen, a young man transformed into a Dawnwalker who can use human abilities during the day and supernatural vampire powers at night.
What does it add?
Its biggest addition to the RPG formula is the combination of a strict time-based narrative, meaningful character choices and a day/night system that changes how you play. You cannot experience everything in a single run, and the game encourages you to accept that some opportunities will pass you by.
Is The Blood of Dawnwalker worth playing?
Yes. Despite some technical problems, repetitive encounters and choices that don’t always have the enormous consequences you might expect, Dawnwalker has an excellent atmosphere, an interesting world and enough personality to stand apart from many modern open-world RPGs.
Is The Blood of Dawnwalker a perfect RPG?
No. The game occasionally struggles to match the ambition of its own ideas. The choice system could have greater impact, combat could use more enemy variety and the PC version still has technical issues that need further attention.
What score does The Blood of Dawnwalker get?
8/10
