The Blood of Dawnwalker Launched on Steam and Received Positive Reviews—But Players Criticize the Technical Side

The Blood of Dawnwalker—the debut project from Rebel Wolves, the former developers of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt—has been officially released. Critics have given the new RPG fairly high praise, and now that it’s available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5, we’re starting to hear what regular players think.

Judging by the initial reactions from Steam players, The Blood of Dawnwalker has been received well by gamers, as the game currently has a 75% positive rating. Additionally, as SteamDB shows, the peak number of online players reached over 44,000 worldwide. Among the positive aspects— as noted by game critics —are the narrative approach, the time-limit mechanic, and numerous similarities to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, including the atmosphere and music.

However, there were also criticisms regarding the game’s technical aspects. Some of the negative reviews—which were more prevalent until very recently—focused on frame rate drops, cutscenes running at 30 FPS, and overall optimization that leaves much to be desired. As a result, many players feel that The Blood of Dawnwalker is overpriced, not to mention other gameplay aspects such as the combat system and the oddly implemented controls—in particular, the attack-binding mechanic and the use of skills via a wheel menu, which are cited as causing discomfort.

Almost every major release these days is affected by technical issues in some way, and given that The Blood of Dawnwalker uses Unreal Engine 5 with extensive use of Lumen lighting, this comes as no great surprise. The developers have already addressed the main issues that arose at launch on social media, and it appears a day-one patch will be released in the coming hours to fix many of the technical issues.

The Blood of Dawnwalker is now available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5