The Blood of Dawnwalker Proves That Less Can Be More in Open World RPGs

The Blood of Dawnwalker takes a bold approach to the open-world RPG formula by giving players just 30 days to prepare for a final battle. While its combat and vampire mechanics have shortcomings, Rebel Wolves' ambitious time system proves that limiting players can make their choices feel far more meaningful.

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The trend of recent open-world RPGs is massive games, in which a player gets dozens of hours of gameplay, side quests, huge maps full of activities. However, the new game, The Blood of Dawnwalker has different concept: instead of providing the player with all the time in the game, the studio Rebel Wolves decided to give the player only 30 in-game days to save Coen’s family from the power of a vampire court. It was an ambitious idea that made the game unique and gave it a specific feeling of urgency, but the idea was not always fulfilled in practice.

The Blood of Dawnwalker was developed by Rebel Wolves, a company established by developers of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. So it is clear for those who played the game that The Blood of Dawnwalker bears all the traits of The Witcher 3. Coen of Laslea, the main character of the game, gets into the world of supernatural monsters, personal tragedy, and moral dilemmas.

However, The Blood of Dawnwalker is not simply trying to recreate The Witcher 3. Its most interesting ideas come from the ways it attempts to challenge the traditional open-world formula.

A 30-Day Clock Changes How You Play

The biggest difference is the game's time mechanism. The game gives you 30 days to prepare for the final battle with the vampires, but the game's timer does not run indefinitely. Instead, different tasks will use up time slots that have different lengths depending on the task. One activity could use only one time slot while others may use several.

This seemingly small feature dramatically alters the way you interact with the game world. For example, digging out a buried treasure would take one slot while assisting your siblings in their game of tag or finding some missing scouts would take three. In other words, each choice would come with its cost in terms of lost opportunities.

The idea, at first, seems extremely promising because it makes one question what really matters. With most open world RPG games, the player can easily abandon his mission and resume when he pleases. However, with this game, it is not always so.

There was one particular mission which illustrates the idea quite clearly. There, Coen goes after a grave robber who desecrated a young man's grave for a silver necklace that he intended to make into arrows that work better against vampires. While Coen succeeded in getting back the necklace, I could not manage to give it back to the mother due to time constraints.

It turned out quite depressing to see that necklace in my inventory some time later. It was nothing more than a side mission, yet the game managed to make it more meaningful by adding the element of time.

You Can Fight the Vampire Lord Almost Immediately

Certainly, one of the most interesting choices in The Blood of Dawnwalker is that the main antagonist can be fought almost immediately. Right after finishing the prologue, players will have an opportunity to try and tackle the opponent right away.

Of course, it would be very hard for them to do so. What the developers suggest doing is to spend those thirty days on improving Coen's skills and completing some quests to establish connections with the characters who may later help him. Players may even track down the other three vampires of the court in order to make it easier to fight their final opponent.

The story itself gains a lot of freedom due to the game structure. Unlike many open-world games, the final goal is not hidden behind a series of arbitrary missions. It lies right there at the beginning and the players decide what amount of preparation is required.

However, as the game advances, the urge tends to lose its effect. The reason is that while at the beginning of the game I felt a need to think over everything before acting in order not to waste time, with only 13 days left to go, all the pressure was removed.

This issue became especially noticeable when other possible ways of reaching the ending started appearing. The game gave me the opportunity to finally complete the story instead of having to rush against time.

Coen's Dual Nature Has Huge Potential

Being a Dawnwalker is another key aspect of Coen's character that contributes to the concept. This means that he is human by day and becomes a vampire at night. It has the capacity to add some truly intriguing elements into the gameplay.

While in the daytime, Coen will have his human traits and his magic at his disposal, at nighttime they will transform his skills and give him vampire capabilities. Some missions and activities are also restricted by the particular time of day. Gear will enable players to implement this concept through the creation of different types of armor for the two characters of Coen.

On paper, it all seems like a good way to make something more out of the day/night cycle in the game. The player will be managing two sides of one and the same character.

The game even adds an element of blood lust to this system. After Coen turns into a vampire, he needs to feed on animals and humans to satiate his thirst. Not fulfilling this need may have dire results in conversation, up to killing key characters in the game.

This notion is very creepy as it implies that the vampirism of Coen might deprive the player of control over him. However, this mechanic did not feel menacing to me throughout the gameplay despite its potential menace implied by the concept. Blood is strongly associated with health, and there was a lot of healing items available.

Combat Fails to Match the Ambition

The Blood of Dawnwalker's combat seems to be pretty decent at first glance. To block enemy attacks, the player needs to react to direction prompts, thus enabling one to successfully defend himself and riposte.

But quite soon the combat becomes boring because of the predictability of enemy attacks which are used during the fights. And the fact that there is little variation outside of boss fights turns the combat into an imitation of the game Simon Says.

The boss fights bring some variation to the combat mechanics of the game, but at the same time show how rich the base combat system could be.

It is especially disappointing since other aspects of the game clearly try to give players freedom of choice. Time system, Coen's vampirism, and relationships make the player think about his decisions, while the combat seems to be less flexible.

A World Corrupted by Vampires

Where The Blood of Dawnwalker does succeed is in creating an atmosphere. The game world is one that is dark and intriguing, in which the impact of the vampire court on the lives of those under its power goes well beyond the act of simply murdering humans.

The vampires have twisted the societies under their control in very unsettling ways, impacting religion, belief and cultural practices by transforming themselves into figures of worship while performing baptisms with blood in the church.

That kind of world building adds another level of intrigue to the vampire court that goes well beyond the creation of simple monster archetypes. It creates a presence in the lives of people within the society in question.

That atmosphere adds depth to Coen's story too. Even when certain gameplay elements fail, the world itself is compelling enough to continue exploring.

The Choices Matter More Than the Clock

Although The Blood of Dawnwalker was flawed from a technical standpoint, its appeal lay in the storyline developed by Coen. The confrontation at the end of the game is superb in terms of reminding the player about his previous actions.

This is the moment when the player's journey and the decisions made during the adventure come full circle, and Coen must face their outcomes. Sometimes, things which seemed to be rather unimportant in the beginning become significant.

However, it is precisely the controversial time mechanic which justifies itself at this point. Although the threat of 30 days' limit became much less intimidating, it affected the adventure nonetheless, as I was aware that not all of my tasks would be done.

This is one of those things that modern games of open-world genre never require.

Blood of Dawnwalker isn’t a perfect RPG. Its fighting mechanics might grow boring after a while, the vampires are less impressive than expected, and the deadline of 30 days slowly starts losing its meaning.

However, Blood of Dawnwalker proves that there is one truth to an open world RPG: it doesn’t have to be all-encompassing.

Today’s RPG games usually win thanks to the quantity of what they have. Larger maps, a larger number of quests, more collectibles, and a longer gameplay time are seen as advancements in the genre. Blood of Dawnwalker shows that limitation can also work to one’s advantage.

The time restriction of just 30 days makes each choice seem more significant. Being unable to finish everything adds some significance to specific decisions. Additionally, being aware of the fact that you are using up your time makes even less significant actions seem like real investment.

By the end of my gameplay experience, the most striking thing that became clear to me was that too much time could have ruined the game completely. Having an ability to finish all quests any time I wanted, I would see no point in preferring one character to another and making hard choices.

Even if the Blood of Dawnwalker is heavily based on The Witcher 3, it contains a really great concept which modern open-world RPGs are not ready to use – telling players that they cannot have it all. And this limitation might be the key to its success.