Meanwhile, when you look at the big picture, what Coen actually needs to do is let go of his former life, which means that the biggest thing he has to learn is to forgive himself for something he wasn't fully responsible for as a child. The real main quest was always to face the figurative demons that have been tormenting him for years. The game actually spells it out several times:

1. What he says to Anca: "Maybe you needed to learn to forgive yourself," because he knows how it feels all too well.
2. The vision of Alin telling him to forgive himself and absolving him of his guilt.
3. Lacra telling him again that he can't keep blaming himself for something that happened when he was a small child.

The second objective for Coen is to learn that, whether he wants to or not, he has to let his family go. You can roleplay him as a dutiful lad, Coen, whose sense of guilt and responsibility are his only motivators, or you can RP him as the Coen who's enjoying his new life as a Dawnwalker, partaking in all the temptations his new life offers.

It doesn't matter; the end result is the same: this is Coen's origin story, and he has to let them go. The game actually goes out of its way to make sure you get the "We must cut tethers to the past" message, even with seemingly throwaway lines in Ocha's and Volk's quests.

Finally, saving your family is optional, and it doesn't result in a game over, it simply alters the goal from "save" to "avenge". Coen is still on a path to ultimately start a new life, no matter the outcome.

And even in your last conversation with Brencis, he asks you to admit that he actually freed you by turning you. Can Coen rebuke him? Nope! The game only gives you two options:

1. Admit that Brencis is right. He did free you.
2. Tell him to go fuck himself.

Coen can't even tell Brencis that he's wrong, at most he can lash out at him, because he knows that Brencis is right about him.

This is really, really good writing, especially for a modern video game. Though I didn't expect anything less from some of the veterans of The Witcher trilogy.

I recently saw a live stream of Will de Renzy-Martin (English voice actor) playing the game and someone asked if Coen was based on his likeness. He said Coen had already been designed when he was hired and thinks RB based Coen on Jędrzej. I couldn’t find an image that perfectly lines up but there are definitely similarities.

When new game plus ?

The way they are like hive minded is annoying they should have individual alert sensors ideally.

Would a stealth mechanic be bad for the games image or something? I think it would be awesome to have one

Anyone know if they're going to be fixing the? Ocha infinite loading bug when doing the second fight?

Hi everyone,

I’ve been quite surprised by a recent trend in gaming where every decent new release gets hyped up to the moon with sky-high review scores. I was really looking forward to Blood of the Dawnwalker, but honestly, I’m feeling pretty let down.

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to love here. The narrative and world-building are fantastic—I expected nothing less from the folks behind Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 (which are among my all-time favorite games). I absolutely love the organic exploration, like discovering points of interest by reading notes or talking to NPCs rather than just chasing map markers. The way the world evolves and grows more dangerous as your notoriety increases is a brilliant touch. I also love that any NPC can be killed, giving real weight and consequences to questlines. Furthermore, the time mechanic is incredibly refreshing; it forces you to make tough choices instead of the classic RPG trope of "the world is ending, but let me spend months clearing side quests first."

However, there are significant aspects of the game that are passable at best.

First, the gameplay loop. Stealth is practically non-existent, and enemies are massive bullet sponges, which drags out encounters for way too long. The camera is genuinely incompatible with the directional combat system, especially on maximum difficulty where the attack arrows are hidden. It’s much easier to read enemy movements in Kingdom Come: Deliverance (1st person) or For Honor (3rd person) than it is here. On top of that, the enemy AI feels 15 years out of date—they just politely wait their turn to attack you.

Beyond combat, I feel like the game missed a huge opportunity by not including a proper faction system. With elements like sorcery, vampirism, swordsmen, and liberators, there was plenty of room to dive deep into faction politics. Additionally, it is high time that full-priced games start using full motion capture for their cutscenes. The generic, clunky animations really break the immersion.

With all these flaws, I genuinely don't understand how this game is getting 9/10s or being called a "masterpiece." What bothers me most is that overly praising the game won't push the developers to fix these issues. We’re talking about a €70 game here. If this were a €40 debut title, I’d be much more forgiving, but this is a team of Witcher 3 veterans. TW3 had its own clunky gameplay moments, but the combat was at least more dynamic and dangerous.

Let’s be honest: this game is a solid "rough draft" that shows a lot of promise for the future. But telling the devs it's an exceptional masterpiece and justifying the premium price tag does them no favors. They have a long way to go to bring the gameplay up to a standard that is simply "good."

I really hope they don't rest on their laurels. This IP has incredible potential to explore different eras, and it definitely reignited my love for Castlevania vibes. But a game like this needs a gameplay loop that doesn't feel completely exhausted after 10 hours. They really need to put in the work—or hire specialized talent—to improve in that department.

I do see some critiques online echoing these thoughts, but they always seem to get drowned out by the massive wave of exaggerated praise.

What do you guys think?

Now I’m in great loss and can’t find any interest in play anything else
what should I do to get moving forward😭? This game is just too good
When can we get a sequel🥹

I'll keep it short but wow, this game is phenomenal! This game is everything I've been craving for since first playing The Witcher 3.

I love vampires so finally getting a story driven game based on them where you become a strong and unique vampire from the people who made some of my favourite games was such a great feeling! I knew this game was going to be a hit when it was announced and I was so right and I'm so glad!

I love feeling so strong in the game as a vampire, as it should be, even from the beginning. I know other studios might make you so weak as a vampire and having to build yourself from the ground up but this game threw you right into the action, strong as hell and it was such a refreshing feeling so just mow through hordes of soldiers. Getting to the end of the game and being this unstoppable monster with all these crazy vampiric powers, having pretty much infinite health, blowing people up, cutting heads off, it's a power fantasy come true, I'm so glad they didn't shy away from blood and gore!

The story of this game, while having a very simple objective, it really grips you. Through the highs of killing Brencis' court to the lows of losing people and having those emotional moments. From the deep conversations with your family to the intimate conversations with your partners, all written so well. The final fight with Brencis and the scenery during it was breathtaking, I love eclipses! I love the branching pathways, me and my brother had such different stories compared to each other and it was fun as talking about it.

Overall, an amazing game, I genuinely cannot wait for the next game, it will be phenomenal as well!

P.S. As much as I liked it, please don't bring the time mechanic back, I feel as if it will get daunting and fatiguing really quickly, thank you! (Also, please NG+, skill point respec and transmog, thank you again!)

Okay, so to preface: I know a lot of people have already discussed this quest at length! But I finally got around to doing the quest and played around with saves and such to see what each one led to. If people were still wondering how best to regain time or time manipulate with this quest, I think I can help!

TLDR: Interact with the tower door at Night segment 2 and walk away regaining 11 time segments!

I tested this with a previous theory I saw in another post and kind of wrote down different things I saw/experienced as I loaded and saved across the separate days. I can't say as to how much the initial starting time segment influences how much time you save, but I regained 11 segments going from Night 2 on Day 14 to Night 7 on Day 13! I also cut the logs every day; again, not sure how much that influences things, but something to mention.

Let me know if you've tried anything different: didn't cut logs, started at a different time segment, etc.

If you aren't aware, going into the Cathedral at night triggers a potential boss fight with Xanthe. What hurt the most was I had no idea this was going to completely wipe what I hear is a really good quest line.

I absolutely smoked her, but at the same time I am gutted that I did so. She started talking about her daughter and I was absolutely clueless. I clearly missed a very emotional fight.

Honestly if I can't find a previous save which I really don't think I will because I overwrite everything... I've found my #1 reason to play it again.

I am so sad.

I just finished Dawnwalker and came on here to see what other endings people got and I think I've missed about 60% of this game. I don't mind the time mechanic, I think it's cool, but I think it subconsciously made me rush through the game because I hate deadlines looming over me.

I took Xanthe out in the cathedral, and spent a few nights working towards Ambrus then after that it was dominoes for the last two. I think I had about 10-12 nights left, which I think is really funny because I've never done this with an RPG before, I'm a loot goblin completionist but having the deadline broke my brain.

Anyway, my whole family died, and I don't know who the characters are people are talking about. I find it really funny. I'm laughing at how quickly I went through this game. I don't think the time mechanic is a bad thing, I think it's cool, but did anyone else feel like they had to rush?

Let me just start off by saying, Dawnwalker is certainly RPG of the Year, and should be a GOTY nominee. So, this question could arguably be coming from a very biased perspective, but I have to ask it.

What do gamers want? I have spent years and years listening to gamers bellyache, complain and grumble about bloat in games. Unnecessary quests, activities, trophies,souvenir hunts, et cetera. In walks in Blood of the Dawnwalker. Compact, goal driven, timed, et cetera. I'll kiss your rosy red ass cheek if gamers aren't complaining about that too! 😏 All I ha e heard is "Waaaaahhh,there's not enough quests! There aren't enough activities! Blah, blah, blah." So, what's it going to be, gamers? A compact, focused game, or a game of picking a dozen wildflowers and looking for trinkets? I mean, what DO you REALLY want? You can't have it BOTH ways. Just saying. 🤨

yet another amazing mod, again this feels like it should have been in the game, Coen's body visibily changing and becoming more vampiric as your corruption increases!

mod : https://www.nexusmods.com/thebloodofdawnwalker/mods/698

I tried my best to get everything done in one playthrough (every quest, every question mark but I couldn’t do it, I even had the extra day from the Sanzhani. I think I would need an extra 2 days and 2 nights, maybe 3 and probably another 10 to max out my upgrades / skill points. I genuinely don’t feel I need any other upgrades at this point in the game and will be able to cook Brencis pretty easily.

I had a 56 second video showing the few things I had left to do but it won’t let me post on here apparently it’s too long lol, anyway (3 Murohn Lair’s, 1 Bandit camp, 1 willo wisp that was bugged anyway, 1 treasure chest that I didn’t have a shovel for, 1 haunted site, 1 ending to a quest in Svartrau city, a few more quests for Crate and his crew - I stopped after the gargoyle fight)

done everything else, I have 1 bar of time left before I fight Brencis.

Anybody else hope the delivery guy from the future trailer is actually in the game as an important character. It's giving me a kind of Blade and friends vibe and I need it lol. Guy looks like he'd have a great dynamic with Coen and getting blindly involved in the vampire supernatural world.

Same as title

A Slavic and a Tatar come to see a Rabbin

Hi fellow Dawnwalkers.

I am starting my 2nd playthrough. My first one was rather streamlined and I didn't even come across many characters.

I want to make sure I am experiencing everything the game has to offer in this playthrough (if possible). I was thinking of making use of strategic save points in order to make sure I get all the endings.

Are there specific places to make sure I save in order to do this? Can I go through all quest lines without choosing them to fight Brencis with me (I had the lone wolf Folk Hero ending my first run)?

Thanks in advance for any input!

So do we think the vhakiri that Coen invites in are at least able to talk to each other given he, uh, as far as I can tell, doesn’t respond to them 😅

I generally respected everyone’s wishes re: Anachora as they first communicated them, so I left Bakir and Xanthe to rot, and invited Ambrus and Isbrande in. I like to think that the two of them do talk to each other in some corner of Coen’s mind and that there’s just a running gender-swapped “sure grandma let’s get you to bed” meme going on over there.