I’m probably never going to get sick of story driven, open-world RPGs. When they’re done right, they’re awesome. And honestly even when they aren’t done perfectly, I can still get something out of it. The 20-minute gameplay overview for The Blood of Dawnwalker made me come away from it feeling like it’s got some real potential to be great.
wAS SOMEONE ON THE TEAM WATCHING KING OF THE HILL?
Rebel Wolves. How do you expect me to sit through your gameplay presentation with any level of seriousness when within the first two minutes I see, POCKET SAND? I love it and I will be playing this game. But I do appreciate that they got right into showing combat. The sword fighting reminds me of a much better version of Skyward Sword. You attack choosing 4 directions to hit your enemy where they aren’t parrying and defense works the same.
Attacks and defense build up activation charges that allow you to do things like placing a hex on your enemies that boils their blood. And then the battle ends with one of the slickest and cleanest decapitation attacks I’ve ever seen in a video game. I mean that head came smooth off of his body.
Skill trees are divided into Human, Vampire, and a shared tree for both. The health bar doesn’t regenerate during the day, which is an awesome touch. You have to use consumables. Hexes take health away. “The way our magic system works, there’s always a price to pay for manipulating reality”. I like that. There are some skills that help mitigate that, but I’m gonna enjoy the strategy of using magic in this game.
The blood of dawnwalker is already visually impressive
For some pre-beta footage, The Blood of Dawnwalker looks pretty good. There are some expected animation quirks but for the most part it’s solid. It reminds me of the first time I saw The Witcher 3. Environmentally, the city looks incredible. It’s like something I would have seen on a TV show and even in this early state, you can see people walking around and even overhear some dialogue.
I’m looking forward to seeing how the world is affected by how aggressively I handle some of gameplay. The Blood of Dawnwalker sounds a bit like Dishonored in that how destructive you are or aren’t can affect what the world looks like and how it reacts to you. The quest structure itself sounds pretty interesting as it leans on their “dual gameplay loop” in which you play as a human during the day and a vampire at night. Which will affect the quests based on choices you make and time of day you take the quest.
We’ve all heard promises of player choice mattering and things like that. In the gameplay video, they show a different path in the quest at night as a vampire. There is an ability called Shadowstep that allows your character to move almost anywhere at will. And of course, there’s some feeding involved with a slight mini game where you can decide how much blood to drain from someone as long as your hunger isn’t out of control.
I’m ready for more
What Rebel Wolves is showing in this gameplay video has me pretty excited. I do wonder about quest variety and just how much impact your play actually will have on the overall world. But those are questions they can answer down the road. You can wishlist The Blood of Dawnwalker now.
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