When I gave The Blood of Dawnwalker a 6/10 in August, I genuinely didn’t expect my review to stand out as much as it did. I was convinced the score accurately represented the game I’d played, and I figured other critics would probably feel similarly. Some did, of course, but seeing so many reviews come in considerably higher than mine caught me off guard. Once my review started making the rounds, plenty of players made their disagreement known too, although there were also quite a few who agreed with me. I wasn’t trying to be different, though. I was just being honest about my experience, and even after The Blood of Dawnwalker earned four nominations at the 2026 Golden Joystick Awards, I still stand by that score.
The interesting thing about those results is that they recognize some of what I praised in my review. I never thought The Blood of Dawnwalker had a bad story. For a while, I thought I’d score it much higher. My problems came later, once I’d spent enough time with its combat and open world to realize how frequently I was doing the same things. Rebel Wolves’ Golden Joystick success doesn’t contradict my review. It’s actually given me another reason to talk about how much I loved some of the game’s ideas, even when I didn’t particularly enjoy what it asked me to do with them.
The Golden Joysticks Recognized What The Blood of Dawnwalker Got Right
At the November 11 ceremony, The Blood of Dawnwalker finished second in Best Storytelling behind Dispatch and second in PC Game of the Year behind Crimson Desert. It also placed fifth among the 12 Ultimate Game of the Year nominees, while Will de Renzy-Martin earned a Best Lead Performer nomination for playing Coen. That’s impressive for Rebel Wolves’ first game, even without a win. Chief publishing officer Tomasz Tinc called the opportunity to compete alongside the year’s biggest releases a remarkable honor. I think he has every reason to celebrate, and nothing about my review should suggest otherwise.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Actually, I was prepared to give The Blood of Dawnwalker a 9/10 when I finished its prologue. That’s how strong an impression those opening hours made on me. Coen’s transformation into a vampire was an excellent starting point, and his family gave me plenty of reason to care about what happened next. Brencis also felt like a legitimate threat rather than another villain the game expected me to take seriously simply because he acted tough. I had every reason to believe the rest would be just as good. As I said in my review, the prologue is easily one of the strongest parts of the entire experience.
The storytelling didn’t fall apart after that, either, which is something I think people may have overlooked when they saw the 6/10 attached to my review. Coen’s relationships continued to interest me, and some of the side quests gave me a reason to care about the people involved rather than whatever reward I might get for helping them. I particularly liked that certain choices could affect where characters ended up later on. Unfortunately, the more I played, the more I realized I was having considerably less fun getting through those quests than I was watching their stories play out. That’s frustrating when the writing had initially convinced me I was in for something exceptional.
I was just being honest about my experience, and even after The Blood of Dawnwalker earned four nominations at the 2026 Golden Joystick Awards, I still stand by that score.
Something else I found interesting was how the conversation among players seemed to change after launch. Early on, I saw a lot of people praising the prologue, and I understood that completely, because I had felt exactly the same way. But a week or two later, I started seeing gameplay complaints that sounded remarkably similar to what I’d written in my review. I also had people comment directly on my review and on social media saying they agreed with my criticisms and appreciated my honesty. Some even went out of their way to send me private messages saying the same thing. It was encouraging to see that I wasn’t alone in my experience, especially when my score had been so different from most other critics. That doesn’t mean everybody eventually came around to my opinion, because they certainly didn’t. But it was interesting to see other players start noticing some of the same things that had ultimately brought my score down.
Great Storytelling Doesn’t Automatically Make a Great RPG
For me, the biggest problem was how repetitive The Blood of Dawnwalker became. There were only so many times I could run to another objective and end up fighting the same enemies before I started dreading the next encounter. Combat genuinely feels great, but that doesn’t help much when the game rarely gives it anything interesting to do. Then there’s the 30-day time mechanic, which I initially loved the idea of but eventually found almost impossible to take seriously. Picking up a shard of an old sword cost me three hourglasses, yet fast traveling across the map cost nothing. Unlocking skills also consumed time I’d supposedly need to save Coen’s family. I don’t need every rule to be realistic, but I do need to understand why the game considers one action more consequential than another.
I wasn’t completely alone in those criticisms, either. Push Square also raised concerns about repetitive combat and limited enemy variety, while TechRadar pointed to mechanics that weren’t used nearly as well as they could have been. Neither review has to agree with mine for my opinion to be valid, and someone loving The Blood of Dawnwalker doesn’t make theirs any less valid. I know plenty of people enjoyed the game far more than I did, and I’m glad they did. I just wasn’t one of them, despite how much I wanted to be after finishing that prologue. The Golden Joysticks gave Rebel Wolves some well-deserved recognition, and I hope its next game builds on what it got right. But I believed The Blood of Dawnwalker deserved a 6/10 when I finished it, and after everything I’ve seen since, I still do.
- Released
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September 3, 2026
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content
- Developer(s)
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Rebel Wolves
