In recent years, "made by the original team" has gradually become a negative label for new games due to excessive commercial marketing. After leaving the mature industrial pipelines, asset accumulation, and IP history of major studios, these "original team" members who became "rogue ninjas" often struggle to replicate their past prowess. Some even risk their reputations, using "made by the original team" merely as a tactic to deceive players into pre-ordering...
However, similar situations can turn around. Recently, facing such a disastrous start where "predecessors cut down the trees, leaving successors exposed to the sun," Blood of Dawnwalkers, crafted by the original core team behind The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, has planted a new sapling next to the stumps left by its predecessors, thanks to its solid quality, slightly restoring the reputation of "made by the original team."
Since it boasts core creators from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, it's no surprise that Blood of Dawnwalkers' theme and story background are anchored in that mysterious and dark medieval era. Perhaps because the development team, Rebel Wolves, has extra expertise in their preferred genre, Blood of Dawnwalkers, despite using an original IP story, achieves a level of immersion comparable to many established RPG franchises.
This is mainly because Blood of Dawnwalkers, as a game telling a dark vampire legend, incorporates two major gameplay systems that balance gameplay and role-playing narrative: the "day-night cycle" and the "Corruption Level."
In familiar vampire lore, being nocturnal and fearing light are the most iconic traits of vampires. However, in Blood of Dawnwalkers, to create dramatic tension, the protagonist Caine becomes a half-vampire "Dawnwalker" due to an incomplete transformation. During the day, Caine appears as an ordinary young man from a medieval village. Only at night are his series of vampire abilities—blood sucking, wall climbing, claws, and teleportation—activated.
These two vastly different gameplay experiences provide great narrative freedom for Blood of Dawnwalkers. For instance, during the day, you might be a highly regarded adventurer in town who defeated nearby beasts with swordsmanship, but at night, you must avoid human settlements to prevent your monstrous vampire appearance from causing unnecessary trouble. Conversely, things impossible to achieve in human form during the day might be easily accomplished using vampire abilities at night.
Beyond the trade-offs in "forms," the day-night cycle in Blood of Dawnwalkers also drives the progression of dates—a phenomenon easily understood in real life. In the game, however, the main storyline requires Caine to rescue his family before a 30-day countdown ends, forcing players to carefully plan every action during the day-night cycles to save as much time as possible for subsequent plot developments.
Such a design might frustrate players seeking perfect saves, but through this "inevitable imperfection," Blood of Dawnwalkers achieves its unique narrative style. If you repeatedly reload saves to test, you'll often find that missing event A is necessary to trigger event B later. This highly branched tree-like narrative structure creates a unique story instance for each player. What story Caine experiences is entirely determined by the player behind the screen.
To some extent, players who make various choices along diverging paths essentially become the protagonist, Caine, themselves. Thus, as players fill out Caine's entire adventure through their choices, Blood of Dawnwalkers delivers an incredibly strong sense of immersion.
If the day-night cycle and time progression design in Blood of Dawnwalkers provides a sense of realism to the story on a broader scale, then the series of ethical dilemmas faced by the protagonist Caine after becoming a half-vampire establish a very well-rounded character image.
As a medieval-themed game, Blood of Dawnwalkers introduces complex sword-fighting mechanics, where both player and enemy attacks and blocks have four directional variants: up, down, left, and right. During combat, players must avoid the opponent's block direction to land hits with their sword, while also inputting the correct directional commands instantly to block attacks coming from different angles.
As long as you don't choose the easiest difficulty, the intense moment-to-moment reactions required in combat will present a significant challenge to players. Dying repeatedly is a common occurrence. However, as mentioned earlier, when night falls, the vampire form grants various powerful abilities.
Wall-running and instant teleportation allow you to avoid many unnecessary encounters. Even if you can't avoid them, the claws generated in vampire form offer faster attack speeds, helping you reduce the number of offensive and defensive exchanges.
Additionally, the vampire's signature ability—blood sucking—provides a significant advantage in combat. Due to the presence of "blood sucking," the health bar in Blood of Dawnwalkers literally becomes a "blood bar."
After losing health, as long as Caine finds a living creature—whether it's a roadside beast, an enemy soldier, or an ordinary farmer—he can drain their blood to gradually replenish his health bar. This ability can be used anytime during combat, provided it's not on cooldown. The impact of shifting the health balance between friend and foe speaks for itself.
Of course, aside from such "violence against violence" scenarios, casually grabbing a medieval farmer by the roadside to drain their blood is indeed unethical. Therefore, the Blood of Dawnwalkers development team specifically added a special "Corruption" level. Under the influence of this "Corruption" level, the more times the player drains blood, the higher their Corruption level becomes. This not only unlocks more vampire form abilities but also adds numerous evil-aligned dialogue and behavior options.
Moreover, when health is low at night, the protagonist's blood-sucking instinct directly overrides rational thought. The usual dialogue options available to the player become locked once the blood-sucking instinct awakens, causing the protagonist to uncontrollably lunge forward and drain the NPC they were conversing with to death...
During cutscenes, the protagonist Caine frequently expresses disgust for this profane ability. However, since the choice lies with the player, you can either diligently prepare blood potions and avoid crowds throughout the game, or choose to indulge fully and embrace complete corruption.
Through your step-by-step choices, Caine can either remain a Dawnwalker true to his original intentions or fall into darkness, colluding with the vampiric monsters who killed his relatives. When you finish this story you've written yourself, recalling the scenes from the journey, a shocking sensation blending the virtual and the real will naturally arise within you.
As a story-driven game, Blood of Dawnwalkers not only excels in its primary role but goes further, exploring the boundaries of narrative techniques in current open-world RPGs through its unique progression design.
On the gameplay front, although Blood of Dawnwalkers also contains the typical "cookie-cutter" filler content found in many recent open-world games, the unique designs of the "day-night cycle" and "Corruption Level" add a touch of fun to these otherwise mundane elements through their rich variability, achieving a balance between gameplay and story.
Consequently, shortly after its release, Blood of Dawnwalkers gained recognition from many WRPG enthusiasts. Within just two days, its cross-platform sales surpassed one million copies. Meanwhile, according to public information from Rebel Wolves studio, they have already aggressively scheduled the development of the series' sequel.
Perhaps, through their efforts, WRPGs can truly recapture their former glory.