The Blood of Dawnwalker Review: One of the Best RPGs Since The Witcher 3

When The Blood of Dawnwalker was first announced in 2025, it instantly drew excitement from RPG fans after it was revealed that it came from the director of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. After all, who wouldn’t be excited about a Witcher-style game with vampires? While new studio Rebel Wolves certainly wears its influences on its sleeve, The Blood of Dawnwalker is one of the most unique RPGs I’ve played in years, and easily a Game of the Year contender.

Visit afrikasportnews.co.za for more information.

A Story Told Across 30 Days and 30 Nights

Screenshot: Brent Koepp

Let’s address the elephant in the room. Yes, The Blood of Dawnwalker technically has a timer system. I generally don’t like timers in games. So much so that I was never able to fully get into the excellent Dead Rising series, simply because I hate the stress and pressure of having to complete things under a deadline. That said, The Blood of Dawnwalker’s timer system ended up being one of my favorite features in the game.

In The Blood of Dawnwalker, the main story is broken up into 30 days and 30 nights. While this might not seem like a lot of time on the surface, the game is absolutely massive. During the day, you play as protagonist Coen in his human form. At night, you transform into a Vrakhir, giving you access to vampiric powers and quests that can only be completed after the sun goes down.

Each half of the day has eight action points, with time moving forward whenever one is used. These “action points” are triggered when completing side quests, leveling up your skills or performing certain in-world interactions. So, it’s not a constantly ticking clock. To put this into perspective, you could theoretically take on six to eight quests in a single day. There were times when a full day cycle took me two hours to complete due to lengthier questlines and map exploration.

Screenshot: Brent Koepp

By the time I reached the halfway point of the story, I didn’t feel rushed or stressed at all. However, the reason I think The Blood of Dawnwalker’s timer system is brilliant is that it adds real weight to the decisions you make. It creates a looming threat without ever feeling too overwhelming.

This is perfectly illustrated in the game’s masterful opening prologue. In the tutorial, Coen has to complete a certain task before the sun goes down. And every side quest you take on progresses time forward. Because of this, you have to make tough decisions on what you want to tackle. Rebel Wolves found a perfect balance. So much so, that by the time I reached the end of the story, I had actually grown to love the time mechanic.

Day and Night Combat Makes Every Battle Exciting

Screenshot: Bandai Namco

Like the game’s story progression, combat is also broken up into separate day and nighttime battle systems. When the sun is out, Coen is a swordsman who can use witchcraft powers. If you are a fan of The Witcher 3’s combat, then you will feel right at home here, as it feels very similar. That said, Rebel Wolves has made some major improvements to the formula.

In particular, The Blood of Dawnwalker has a new “Omniattack” system, which allows players to hold their joystick in the direction they want their attack to land. Similarly, players will receive a quick prompt showing them what direction an enemy is about to strike in.

For example, if a soldier is about to land an attack from the left, you can hold your joystick in the same direction while pressing the block button to omniblock or counter it. Successfully blocking enemies and landing attacks earns you Activation Charges, which allow you to use powerful spell attacks in battle.

Screenshot: Brent Koepp

This creates an intense blow-for-blow combat system where every fight feels like a knock-down, drag-out brawl. As you progress through the game, you can also unlock new witchcraft abilities and spells. One of my favorites is a power that sets enemies on fire using Coen’s blood. Once upgraded, the effect jumps from enemy to enemy, and it’s awesome.

However, combat really opens up at night when you become a vampire. While you can still use your sword, you can now attack with Coen’s sharp vampire claws to slash away at enemies and inflict bleed effects. Coen can also now teleport behind enemies and bite their necks, draining their health while restoring his own. This creates a risk and reward combat system where players can gain health back by going on the offensive.

Rebel Wolves’ dual combat system is pretty revolutionary, as it gives you two drastically different battle experiences that keep the game engaging throughout the entire playthrough. I was actually excited to invest skill points into each skill tree because I knew I would eventually get to use both my daytime and nighttime builds. The game even allows you to create preset armor, weapon and accessory loadouts for each half of the day. It’s extremely rewarding.

Player Choices Shape The Blood of Dawnwalker’s Story

Screenshot: Brent Koepp

The Blood of Dawnwalker really shines with its player-driven storytelling. The basic setup of the plot is that a plague has broken out across the kingdom of Vale Sangora. To stamp it out, the king issues an order to hunt down and eradicate any civilians who are sick.

This is when the game’s main villain, Brencis, and his vampiric council, mysteriously appear and overthrow the monarchy. Using their vampiric blood, they cure the population of the plague and give the people their freedom.

The catch? Once a month, humans must allow the vampires to drain them as a form of blood tax. However, the deal quickly goes sour when Coen and his village realize that the Vrakhiri eventually dispose of anyone who can no longer fulfill their feeding obligations. The main narrative then centers around Coen having 30 days to save his family, who have been taken by Brencis.

After this opening setup, players are dropped into a massive open-world sandbox. While The Blood of Dawnwalker initially gives you a few main narrative quests to push you in the right direction, the handrails are subtly taken away, leaving you to craft your own story. I absolutely love the direction Rebel Wolves took by blending old-school choose-your-own-adventure storytelling with modern open-world RPG systems like those found in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and The Witcher 3.

Screenshot: Brent Koepp

To give you an example of this free-form narrative system, there is a quest later in the game where I had to forge an important sword relic. I genuinely had no clue where to go next. I eventually stumbled upon various side quests that initially seemed completely unrelated. However, they eventually led me to clues that revealed one of the objectives I needed to complete to forge the sword.

As a result, I constantly found myself discovering rich side quests and characters that surprised me at every turn. There were even decisions I made 10 hours into the game that came back to haunt me 20 or 30 hours later.

I won’t go into spoilers, but there was one character I chose to have Coen feed on, only to later discover that they were an important NPC in another quest. My earlier decision ended up drastically altering the story. Oops.

One of the Best Vampire RPGs Ever Made

Screenshot: Brent Koepp

The Blood of Dawnwalker is one of the best vampire games I’ve ever played. Because vampire games are practically a genre of their own, I felt the title’s vampiric elements deserved to be discussed separately.

In the game, Coen has to come to grips with becoming undead. However, a clever plot device Rebel Wolves uses is making the character a “Dawnwalker,” which, as you know by now, is someone who is human during the day and a Vrakhir at night.

This plot device is incredibly effective because it constantly puts players in a position where they have to wrestle with and consider Coen’s humanity. Plenty of RPGs have featured morality systems. However, it’s particularly effective in The Blood of Dawnwalker because Coen is constantly fighting to retain his humanity.

Screenshot: Brent Koepp

This is cleverly woven into the game’s questlines. You might be tempted to give in to your cravings to become more powerful, but you still have to live with yourself the next morning when you are human again. Speaking of the vampiric elements, players must regularly feed as Coen, or he can lose control and kill NPCs during dialogue sequences.

This isn’t too difficult to manage, as you can find animals in the wild to drain blood from. You can also feed during the game’s many enemy encounters. While in his Vrakhir form, Coen can use Shadowstep to teleport to the tops of buildings or mountains. He can even transform into a wolf, allowing him to sprint quickly across the map.

The Blood of Dawnwalker Review Verdict

Screenshot: Brent Koepp

The Blood of Dawnwalker isn’t just one of the best games I’ve played this year, it’s easily one of the best RPGs I’ve experienced since The Witcher 3. Its dual day-and-night structure makes both exploration and combat feel constantly exciting, while its 30-day timer gives your choices real weight without making the adventure feel rushed.

What impressed me most, though, was how much freedom the game gave me to shape Coen’s story. Like classic RPG’s, Rebel Wolves drops you into a massive open world and let’s you figure out how to reach the end of the story. As a result, decisions can have consequences dozens of hours later, side quests naturally lead to major discoveries and Coen’s struggle to retain his humanity is woven into almost every part of the experience.

Rebel Wolves may have built the game on familiar open-world RPG foundations, but The Blood of Dawnwalker ultimately establishes an identity entirely its own. Its ambitious storytelling, rewarding combat and excellent vampire mechanics make it a genuine Game of the Year contender, and an absolute must-play for RPG fans.

Verdict: Best In Its Class (10/10)

Screenshot: Bandai Namco

Pros

• The Blood of Dawnwalker’s day and night system is awesome, as it offers you two completely different combat systems during each cycle.
• The game’s time mechanic isn’t stressful or limiting, and is actually cleverly implemented in a way that adds weight to your decisions.
• The open-world map is massive, and Rebel Wolves’ gives you complete freedom to discover storylines on your own terms. Smaller quests can often turn into main storylines and choices actually matter as you progress further into the main plot.

Cons

• The Blood of Dawnwalker currently runs at 40 FPS on Balanced Mode which might feel sluggish to some. However, Rebel Wolves has announced that a 60 FPS performance mode will be released at launch.
• While the game’s art style is gorgeous, Dawnwalker can sometimes have some small performance hiccups such as lighting issues or chugging framerate. However, I only noticed this when using Haste or Shapeshift to sprint quickly across the map.
• While I personally loved the Blood of Dawnwalker’s timer system, some players might not like every action moving time forward, such as leveling up skills. However, the game does not end after the 30 days are up, and I did not find the system limiting or stressful at all.

The Blood of Dawnwalker releases on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on September 3, 2026. A code was provided by Bandai Namco for the sake of review. Reviewed on PlayStation 5 Pro.

The post The Blood of Dawnwalker Review: One of the Best RPGs Since The Witcher 3 appeared first on VICE.

Read full story at source