We’re sure many of you have been watching out for news about The Blood of Dawnwalker ahead of its release next month, eager to see if Coen’s adventure is worth taking on in a month where several other titles are vying for your attention. We’ve been quite intrigued at the thought of playing a vraakhiri, or a vampire-human hybrid in more common terms, making decisions that have an impact that might be more lasting than we initially believed.
Some of you might already know what we’re talking about, while others may not. Irrespective, we’ve done a fair bit of digging around to learn more about Vale Sangora and the adventure that’s set to unfold within its boundaries. Here are a bunch of new things you’re going to want to know to make an informed choice about picking this one up.
1. Locked Regional Difficulties
We knew that Vale Sangora opens its doors to you pretty early on, giving you quite a bit of freedom in how you choose to approach the story and side content it’s offering. However, we’ve seen how that plays out in other games where progression is level-based or gear-based, leaving you locked out of areas until you farm out levels or try to grind out better gear.
The developers have taken an approach that weaves in the best of both worlds, letting you explore the world with your current level locking in the moment you enter a region, and a min/max difficulty system setting the ceiling on each one depending on when you choose to visit it. That lets you take on the entire world at your own convenience, and we’re pretty excited to see how this plays out.
2. Dynamic Weather Has An Effect On Gameplay
Dynamic weather systems might be getting more common in current-gen games, but the real magic is when they’re used to effectively change the experience on offer. Dawnwalker’s gorgeous take on medieval-style architecture, coupled with the fact that it’s putting vampires in that world, makes it a perfect place to let the weather work with you to make engaging with Vale Sangora worthwhile.
That’s definitely the case, and we’ve already seen how fog can affect visibility across the board, allowing both Coen and his enemies to make use of it to turn the tables. We can’t wait to see how other weather effects place wrinkles in the gameplay loop, but for now, the knowledge that the weather is more than cosmetic in this one has us quite happy indeed.
3. Accessibility Options For A Manageable Challenge
If this one’s looking like something you’re uncertain about since melee combat isn’t your best gaming skill, you’ll be pleased to know that official listings point to “Advanced” adjustable difficulty settings, which suggests that you can tweak several facets of the experience to make things easier for you.
While we’re yet to be told more about what those options are, we’re expecting that combat’s going to come with more than a few sliders to give you options to make fights go your way more often. That’s good news even if the combat isn’t giving you pause, as it’s likely that you can find a setting or two that you might consider a good quality-of-life feature.
4. A Roughly 50-70 Hour Playthrough
Internal testing results over at Rebel Wolves have showcased a fifty to seventy-hour playthrough that we’re assuming included a comprehensive journey through the world with a good look at what it had to offer. That’s good news for completionists, although you want to remember that you can’t see it all in a single playthrough thanks to how things are structured.
There’s a lot of replay value on offer if you want to experience every possibility in Vale Sangora, which should get you a couple of playthroughs in addition to your first run. We’re expecting many of you to become quite invested in this one, especially because of some of the other things we’re about to tell you a little later down the line.
5. No Minigames
The stakes are pretty high for Coen, and his goals and adversaries are pressing enough to leave him very little time for leisure as he attempts to save his family from Brencis’s grasp.
Of course, there’s plenty of entertainment to be found in destabilizing Brencis’s regime and drawing the ire of his followers. Or perhaps diving into hidden corners of the Vale to uncover nuggets of its rich lore and ancient history, often uncovering useful gear or tools in the process. Plus, the consequence-based story is enough for those of you who want a bit of unpredictability in your games.
6. A Bunch of QoL Features
Speaking of consequence-based stories, the manual save option is definitely going to be something you feel grateful for at some point in a story where things can get messy even off one single bad choice. While the developers encourage you to roll with it and move on from a loss, we know that some losses can be enough to derail a story that you’ve been quite careful about navigating to make things go your way. Manual saves are a great failsafe in such scenarios.
Of course, other nice options like being able to pause both gameplay and cinematics, control remapping, sensitivity and inversion options, and none of those annoying rapid button presses are all welcome. That 30-day deadline Coen’s on might be uncompromising, but that doesn’t mean the journey to its end has to be.
7. More Early Ending Conditions
Early previews of the game showcase different ways to roll the credits ahead of schedule aside from raiding Brencis’s stronghold directly, without rallying support or destabilizing his regime in Vale Sangora. For instance, a prologue boss you meet about three hours in can be beaten, causing the credits to roll.
Another instance has Coen just walking away from his family and the Vale, something to watch out for if experiencing his story for all its worth is something you want to do. But this knowledge has made us quite curious to see what surprises Vale Sangora has in store for us once its doors are open to us all.
8. Updated PC Requirements
If you’re planning to play this one on PC, the minimum configuration that the developers suggest includes a GTX 1060/RX 580, i5-11400F/Ryzen 7 2700X and 16GB of RAM, while the recommended specs bump things up to an RTX 4060/RX 7600 XT/Arc B580, i7-11700K/Ryzen 7 5700X with the RAM requirements staying the same.
You’re going to need 60GB of SSD storage on either configuration. We can’t wait to tell you more about how the graphics play out across platforms, but we’ve got high expectations for the PC version based on what we’ve seen so far.
9. No Denuvo On The PC Version
The PC version of Dawnwalker isn’t going to have Denuvo working in the background, which is good news for those of you who disapprove of it, or are worried about potentially tanking performance thanks to it.
10. 4K And Ray Tracing On The Series X
The Series X is confirmed to support 4K UHD resolutions with ray tracing on board to make your time in Vale Sangora as immersive as it can be. That’s welcome news for those of you who possess the higher-specced machine, and we’re hoping to get the best out of Coen’s adventure on the visual front.
We’re eager to learn more about frame rates and more, and you can be sure we’ll be telling you about the minute new information comes around.
11. Xbox Play Anywhere Support
While we’re on the subject of Xbox, buying a copy of the game for your Series X or S lets you also access it on PC if you decide to continue the adventure on a better-specced machine that you get access to. That’s pretty convenient, and we’re glad to see the option to do so included with a game that’s as highly anticipated as this one.
12. Physical Discs Get The Full Game
If you’re firmly in the camp that buys physical copies of games for the discs, you’re going to be happy to know that this one doesn’t need its day-one patch, although it’s highly recommended to install before you get started. That’s good news since it confirms that all of the data you need to run the game is included on its disc, which means that you get to replay it all you want over the years, which is becoming something of a concern these days.
13. The Preorder Armor Isn’t Exclusive
If you’ve been thinking about pre-ordering this one just for the Sangoran Wayfarer’s Armor, you might want to know that you do get to unlock it fairly early in the game in case you pick up a copy after release. That’s welcome news for those of you who like to wait for a few thorough reviews before you decide to drop your cash on a game, which often comes at the cost of having to live with missing out on a few exclusives in the process.
That isn’t the case here, although the armor looks like it could be useful to have in your possession sooner rather than later.
14. Different Editions And Goodies
Speaking of exclusives, there are quite a few goodies that look very tempting if you’re a collector. While the Standard Edition is digital-only and includes the base game, the digital-only Eclipse Edition includes a World Compendium, game soundtrack, and comic book.
The physical-only Day One edition includes a Steelbook and World Map aside from the base game, but you’re missing out on the soundtrack and comic book. Finally, the Collector’s Edition includes everything from all other versions of the game and throws in extra goodies and, as such, is available only in physical versions.
15. The Story Goes Further Than Vale Sangora
We’re sure you’ve all seen Coen wearing noticeably modern clothing and getting some blood bags delivered before being confronted by a vampire in one of the trailers. Well, the developers have since confirmed that The Blood of Dawnwalker is going to be a self-contained story that is the first of many planned instalments.
Even more exciting is the news that your choices in the game could influence what you see in subsequent titles, an approach we’re pretty interested to see in action as the beginnings of a potentially thrilling vampire franchise now draw ever closer.
That’s it for this one. We must say that Coen’s story looks quite compelling, and the systems that are going to make it unfold look quite solid from where we’re standing. We’re cautiously optimistic about this one as always, but we can’t help but grin with anticipation every time we think about it. We’ll be seeing you in Vale Sangora; you can be sure of that.
