The Blood Of Dawnwalker review

Two weeks ago, the vampire that rules over Coen of Laslea's valley torched his village, captured his family, and cursed Coen to an eternity of blood thirst. This evening, Coen is standing on a mountain pass, getting pelted with rocks by large, jeering goat people. "Baah", they taunt. "Baaah-ha-ha". 

Coen isn't happy about this, but he can't do a thing. This is because I've decided the goat people are my friends, so I keep choosing pacifist dialogue options despite three opportunities - and constant encouragement from my companion - to kill them all.

I'm having one of a handful of asterisk-free excellent times thus far in The Blood Of Dawnwalker. Mostly because the game has finally offered up a crumb of that good, good whimsy after submerging me in fifteen hours of muck, pestilence, viscera, laborious combat, torture, 'excellent artisanal' epic trousers, and despair. 

There are sweetly sombre vistas and scenes of chilling folk horror lurking in this cursed valley; awe and terror dancing around the maypole together. There are fascinating hints at a history of forbidden magic, and uncomfortably tangible tales of oppression tolerated through paralysing fear of the alternative. Before Brencis came, cruel boyars ran unchecked, and the black death ran rife. Now, every week at mass, his vampire court drink from the people, and share their blood in return. The plague is gone. The boyars were hanged. Newborns are the "strongest they've ever been". Vampire tyranny is one thing, but vampire populism? What a hook.

There is all that, plus some of the best violin scraping and the absolute best gnarled bog trees ever committed to Unreal Engine. But there's also such constant, droning misery and aimless sadism-as-set-dressing that Dawnwalker often devolves into a four yorkshireman-esque pissing contest with itself. "It smells of rot and blood here," Coen groans as he enters a cave. Yes, Coen. I know, I know. It's rot and blood all the way down.