[h2]The Blood of Dawnwalker does something I wish more open-world RPGs would do: it makes your time in the world actually matter.[/h2]
[b]The 30-day time limit.[/b] Games like this often suffer from ludonarrative dissonance: the story tells you that something is incredibly urgent while you spend three in-game weeks picking flowers and clearing bandit camps. Here, your time has actual value. Exploring the world became a role-playing decision in itself. I genuinely enjoyed wandering off the road just to see what I might find, but whenever I saw some commotion in the distance, there was always that little thought of: [i]“Do I actually want to get involved in this?”[/i]
Importantly, the timer creates pressure without becoming oppressive. For most of the game I felt like I had to consider how I spent my days, but somewhere around day 20 I realized that I was comfortably on track. It strikes a very good balance: if you explore, do quests and avoid wasting days repeating the same generic activities over and over, there is enough time to experience an enormous amount of the game.
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[h2]Time has consequences[/h2]
What I especially liked is that the clock isn't only there for the main 30-day deadline. [b]Some quests are time-sensitive as well.[/b] If you discover something and decide to ignore it for too long, that opportunity might simply disappear, or the situation may resolve without you and lead to a different outcome.
That makes the world feel much more believable. A quest sitting in your journal isn't always a promise that the entire world will patiently wait until you decide to deal with it. Sometimes seeing something happen and thinking [i]“I'll come back to this later”[/i] is a decision in itself — and the game is willing to make you live with it. [spoiler]- Like I did with Crake. I decided to go looking for the sword fragments instead of following up on him bursting out immediately, and by the time I came back, the opportunity was gone — along with the achievement for completing his questline.[/spoiler]
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[h2]Writing and choices[/h2]
The writing is easily its strongest element. And I mean the whole game, not just the main story. [b]The side quests regularly reach the level of The Witcher 3[/b] and rarely feel like lesser content placed there to fill the map. Characters have believable motivations, quests develop in unexpected directions, and choices generally feel like they carry some actual weight.
The consequences aren't on the almost absurdly reactive level of Baldur's Gate 3, but I actually prefer it that way here. I don't need every single detail of the story to be mutable. Some things being canon while still giving me meaningful control over the important decisions makes for a more coherent narrative.
Coen also grew on me a lot. He's essentially a responsible young man suddenly forced into situations and moral dilemmas that nobody his age should be equipped to deal with, and I think the game handles that very well.
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[h2]Combat[/h2]
Combat sits in a good middle ground. It isn't mindless button mashing, but it also doesn't bury you under unnecessary complexity. After a few hours I felt confident with the system and it remained satisfying throughout the game.
By the end my character had become ridiculously powerful and my health bar barely moved, so I probably should have played on a higher difficulty. If anything, that just gave me a reason to do another playthrough on the highest one.
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[h2]Presentation[/h2]
Visually, the Witcher 3 DNA is immediately noticeable in the art direction, but the actual level of detail is obviously several generations ahead. Character models, clothing, environments and textures can look fantastic.
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[h2]The rough edges[/h2]
The game does have some technical rough edges. I had a dialogue get stuck in a loop, temporarily lost the ability to save because a required cutscene failed to trigger, and once managed to fall outside the map. None of these cost me more than a few minutes thanks to autosaves, but they're still worth mentioning.
My other criticism is the lack of a proper stealth-kill system. I only encountered maybe two situations where I actively wished I could silently eliminate someone, so its absence didn't really hurt my playthrough, but the game would benefit from having that option.
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[h2]The ending[/h2]
The ending left me wanting a little more, while still properly closing the story it set out to tell. For a game that is clearly meant to establish a new franchise, that's exactly the balance I want: [b]a complete story, with enough left open to make me interested in what comes next.[/b]
And finally, if the people responsible for these quests are indeed some of the same writers who worked on The Witcher 3, then after finishing Dawnwalker I have one additional thought:
[i]I'm slightly concerned about what their absence might mean for The Witcher 4.[/i]
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[h2]9/10[/h2]
[b]Half a point lost for the occasional bugs, half for the lack of proper stealth assassinations.[/b]
