When I had to review Bloodlines 2, one of the worst games of last year, one of the recurring thoughts I had as I made my way from one tedious objective to another was about how a game involving vampires could be so boring. In the process, I found myself impatient, not for that one to end, but for another vampire-based experience to make its way to my console.
I’m referring, of course, to Rebel Wolves’ The Blood of Dawnwalker, in which making your way from one mission to another is decidedly more interesting thanks to the game’s systems coming together beautifully to give the impression of a title that’s iron-clad in its vision. With focus, style, and a vibe that can be hard to pull off even in current-gen titles, Coen’s adventure is shaping up to be one of the biggest hits to grace the action-adventure genre.
But of course, that’s just my opinion. However, I do think that everything I’ve seen in the game’s promotional materials backs that theory up, and by a long shot. Dawnwalker isn’t just a game that’s so well-done it becomes the stuff of legends. That’s too easy.
It’s an experience that could hold the torch for the games that follow it, even as it encourages you to stick to the shadows as you stalk your enemies.
A Straightforward Setting and Premise
Give the game’s story trailer a watch, and you’ll begin to see what I mean. We’re quickly introduced to all of the key players in the game’s narrative, and the reason for Coen’s transformation and for his disdain towards the vampire cohen that has taken over Vale Sangora, his homeland.
Of course, the stakes (pun intended) are quite high for any sort of dissent he plans to attempt, the fate of his sister hanging in the balance and all that. It’s the kind of story in which you get the sinking feeling that no one among the cast is really safe, and I don’t think I’m going to be picking any favorites during my first playthrough, at least.
Notice how I said “first”? That’s because of the way the narrative is structured, allowing for each of your choices to affect the outcomes of key plot points in various ways. That screams replay value, and I do think that anyone who plays this one on its terms is going to be diving into a new playthrough almost right off the bat to see if there’s a better way to achieve what they set out to do.
That’s a great premise, and it’s one that’s backed by Vale Sangora itself. Its gothic architecture works well with the kind of medieval setting that the developers have crafted with painstaking detail. But excellent visuals are only part of the reason why I think the stage upon which Coen’s story unfolds is as important as the adventure that awaits us. Yes, visual fidelity and solid performance do help sell the game’s material. But that’s already been done by so many great titles over the current generation of gaming hardware’s life span. But Vale Sangora is different.
Exploring cities, towns, and villages isn’t just a way to gather clues and perhaps lore about life in the Vale. It’s a way to learn more about your enemies and the manner in which their influence has seeped into the very social fabric of your home. It showcases the manner in which humans have become secondary citizens in their own homes and the social injustice that follows such discrimination.
Hell, the humans in the Vale discriminate against each other in a few instances, making me wonder if Coen had any chance at all of leading his people to freedom against Brencis and his cohort of superpowered beings. It’s a world of complexities and nuance, often making its presence felt as a character all on its own. It fits the game’s narrative context like a glove, working in tandem with it to bring a degree of polish and cohesion that bodes very well for the game.
Coen is clearly an underdog, but he’s one with a lot to lose. The consequences of failure could be more than he could bear, given that he would have to carry them for eternity thanks to his newfound powers. However, his condition does come with a time limit that’s constantly ticking away (more on that in a jiffy).
I’m quite confident in the story and worldbuilding of this game, partly due to the evidence that’s right in front of me and the intangible value of having a team that’s largely composed of the folks behind The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. They’ve already nailed a story with complex, branching narrative paths before. They’ve already crafted a world full of possibilities and hidden consequences that blew our minds nearly eleven years ago.
But The Blood of Dawnwalker could allow them to scale new heights. Why do I think so?
Decisions, Decisions
It all comes down to the narrative choices you get to make as Coen. But it isn’t just choosing one dialogue choice over another. This time around, that choice is baked into the world itself, dictating the approaches you decide to take to situations you encounter, a facet of the game that’s already on display in all of its gameplay showcases.
Do you take on a situation as a human, navigating complex social interactions to get to what you need while you bask in the sunlight? Or do you decide to give in to the bloodthirstiness of your condition and take a more direct approach as a vampire, using the shadows and your unprecedented physical advantages to bypass defences and infiltrate areas with ease?
Coen’s duality as a human-vampire hybrid is a constant background presence in The Blood of Dawnwalker, forcing players to think about whether they want to lean towards tackling the game as a human or a vampire, each of which comes with its own complications and advantages. Or perhaps striking a balance between the two for the sake of a sister that Coen is so desperate to save.
It helps that Brencis and his lieutenants are constantly responding to your actions, the world becoming either easier or more treacherous to navigate as a result. Once again, the game’s design choices blend so seamlessly into the overall experience that it’s quite hard to tell them apart.
And that’s a factor that’s definitely part of a solid blockbuster in my book. But of course, there’s more to it than just that.
Fighting for Freedom
The duality of Coen’s predicament is also baked into the game’s combat systems. As a human, he’s clinical and efficient in battle, taking care to dispatch any opposed to him with finesse and grace (Clair Obscur, anyone?). He is methodical and observant, ready to exploit any weaknesses his enemies show with surgical precision.
But unleash the vampire, and he is a different beast entirely. He’s almost frightening, a force that mere mortals might find hard to comprehend, let alone mount a defence against. He is brutal, tearing through rank and file enemies with abandon, feeding off their blood to keep himself in the fight a lot longer than they can afford to have him on his feet.
The constant tug of war between his human and vampire sides is an undercurrent that blends very well with the game’s other systems to create narrative tension that carries over to the moment-to-moment gameplay. But it does more than that.
It works very well with the entire idea that he has only a month to complete his adventure, adding a sense of urgency to the story that would otherwise fall prey to the seemingly endless amount of time that most action-adventure protagonists seem to have at their disposal when they’re let loose in an open world.
That ultimately results in an open-world experience that’s typically shorter but exponentially more focused as a result. It removes the scope for player fatigue by setting the entire darn adventure on a ticking clock, and one that isn’t going to afford them the one luxury that Coen’s counterparts in the genre have in spades: time.
It’s a flourish that might be hard to pull off, but I have full faith in the talented team behind this experience. It gives me the feeling that Vale Sangora is probably going to be one of the darkest, most fascinating places that I’m going to have the privilege of visiting in a modern video game.
Mind you, I’ve been to quite a few of those, but none of them appeal to me in the way that The Blood of Dawnwalker has managed with just a few gameplay showcases and the soaring feeling that we’re all finally getting the vampire game we deserve.
Of course, things could go badly wrong, Murphy’s Law and all that. But I’m willing to bet that it isn’t going to be the case. This one looks like it’s going to be pure cinema from the get-go, and it’s a tale I hope to be looking back fondly on for a long time to come.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.