On Day 1, tons of of persons are already sharing their ideas on the vampire RPG from the previous Witcher builders. Most have reward to spare, however as is usually the case, technical points at launch are spoiling the enjoyable for some.
The Blood of Dawnwalker is likely one of the most anticipated RPGs of 2026—and since September 3, now you can immerse your self in the dead of night, 14th-century vampire world.
Press evaluations, reminiscent of our in-depth evaluate of Dawnwalker, have been out there for a couple of days now, and the primary consumer evaluations have additionally began showing on Steam. These additionally present that followers of darkish fantasy have a lot to stay up for—albeit with a couple of caveats, principally of a technical nature.
Right here’s what the primary Steam evaluations are saying
On the time of this text, the Steam scores stand at 73 %, which interprets to “Principally Optimistic.” The builders absolutely hoped for a barely higher outcome—in any case, veterans like the previous director of The Witcher 3 had been concerned.
However many of the criticism isn’t truly directed on the sport itself. Neither is it aimed on the time mechanics—which had been extremely controversial earlier than launch—that aren’t truly as dangerous as they initially sounded.
The largest annoyance for a lot of proper now could bestutteringin cutscenes and the open world,crashesand, in some instances,points with the beneficial controller scheme, reminiscent of when Coen immediately freezes. This apparently impacts not solely older techniques but additionally high-end mid-range computer systems that exceed the desired necessities.
In our take a look at, we had been fully spared such issues more often than not, aside from uncommon and barely noticeable body drops. And plenty of different gamers don’t appear to have these sorts of issues both—there are just too many doable variables to foretell precisely who will be capable of play easily. The one resolution right here is to attend for patches from the builders.
Past the Tech: What’s Praised, What’s Criticized?
The sport is receiving reward above all for its nice horror environment and robust story, although you need to remember that most gamers have solely been enjoying for a couple of hours and haven’t gotten very far but. Nonetheless, primarily based on our personal testing expertise, we are able to let you know that the story continues at a excessive degree, with a couple of actual highlights within the optionally available quests.
Steam consumer Blade (whose judgment we belief blindly, if solely due to his title) writes:
It’s The Witcher with extra chunk. This vampire RPG fills the void left by Bloodlines 2.
A well known RPG professional additionally seems within the evaluations: Influencer SynthPotato already has 44 hours of playtime beneath his belt, clearly having obtained an early evaluate key. His ranking is available in at 8/10:
A must-play for followers of The Witcher and different RPGs.The Blood of Dawnwalker will get a lot proper. The story, the lore, the open world, the actions, the extremely distinctive construction—it’s all flawless and on par with The Witcher and Cyberpunk. I used to be fully hooked on this sport for 40 hours—virtually hooked on it at one level—as a result of exploration is a lot enjoyable and the story by no means loses steam.
However sadly, the fight is a significant flaw in an in any other case improbable sport. As a result of battles happen so ceaselessly—since there’s no stealth system—a lot of the gameplay feels flawed and unpolished, particularly since fight feels so spongy and fights take far too lengthy with out ever supplying you with an actual sense of progress. Nonetheless, the robust writing and the improbable open world make this sport value enjoying by means of, even with these points.
He’s already lined many of the criticisms (together with ours), particularly this one: battles take too lengthy as a result of enemies can take too many hits with out happening, even later within the sport. Because of this, Coen by no means actually feels highly effective, besides in these moments when he makes brief work of boss enemies.
Have you ever already began enjoying *The Blood of Dawnwalker*, or are you ready a bit longer till a few of the technical teething points have hopefully been patched? Do you play with a controller as beneficial, or with a mouse and keyboard (that’s how most of our testers performed by means of the sport—it really works simply tremendous)? Be happy to share your ideas within the feedback.
