Boy, this is a weird one! While the game looks somewhat interesting thanks to the setting (medieval Europe setting with vampires) and it being an RPG – The Blood of Dawnwalker feels extremely derivative of the games The Witcher 2 & 3. I don’t mean tiny bits of general gameplay here. Everything feels and looks like it has been copied directly from those titles. The UI, the map, and icons, the investigation mechanics, the floaty death-of-thousand-cuts combat, Hex magic and then the visuals itself. What the hell is going on here? I have never seen a presentation like this before, where every segment of a game being showcased reminds me exactly of an older title.
I don’t want to slag off the game too much before playing, but from what is shown, Dawnwalker probably copies the grey tone of morality too. A morality that will always punish the player for taking the obvious good path. For anyone who’s played modern dark and gritty RPGs knows what I’m talking about:
“A girl desperately calls out in distress. Your choice is to save or leave the poor girl to her fate. Being the hero of the story, you naturally save her from the evil bandits”. But oh-oh! Subversion incoming! The girl you saved turned out to be a demon that later kills an entire village of innocents, small cute children and puppies included. Bad player, bad!
I can’t say I find this kind of subversion thrilling, as it acts more of a “got ya”, than anything cool narratively. Now, I can’t say the game will be like this, since once again, I have not played it, but the signs are there. Especially if they follow the story beats of The Witcher. Check out the gameplay video below for yourself:
– Thomas
Tom's Gaming Vault 