Housing Blueprints
The Blood of Dawnwalker hands you one bloke with two completely different ways of throwing down. By day, Coen is a disciplined swordsman. By night, he turns into a wall-crawling, throat-biting vampire who fights dirty and makes a mess doing it.
Combat is easily one of the main reasons many people will be tuned in to The Blood of Dawnwalker. The contrast between the two styles is a unique approach. But it also means there are some complicated things to understand, so let's take a look.
Check out our overview guide to The Blood of Dawnwalker to learn more about the game.
Table of Contents
Combat Basics
The key thing to note upfront with The Blood of Dawnwalker is that the default combat style is directional combat. Similar to what you've seen in Kingdom Come 2 or Chivalry 2. You pick a direction to strike, up, down, left, or right by flicking the right stick (or mouse), rather than mashing a single attack button.
Defence works the exact same way. Enemies telegraph their swings from one of those four directions, and your job is to read the line and respond. You can just hold block to eat the hit, but that chews through your stamina fast. Time it properly and match the direction of the incoming blow, and you'll parry instead, deflecting cleanly without burning the resource. Precision over panic, basically.
Keep hammering the same direction, and enemies start to read you, so you need to keep things fresh. Stamina is also a key part of this; attacking and parrying both deplete stamina, so you can't just mash attacks and blocks.
Note: Some enemies use unblockable attacks, which are flagged, so you'll need to dodge those.
Omni Combat
If you don't fancy the directional combat, then the game has an "easier" option. Omni Combat comes in as an accessible alternative, replacing the directional swings with automated swings. While this system is easier, it does come at the cost of using more of your Stamina.
Neither option is locked in, however, so you can change between the two as you please, or if you fancy something a little different for easier or harder enemies. Unblockable attacks will still require you to dodge in Omni Combat.
Daytime Combat (human)
While the sun's up, Coen is fully human, which means sword and witchcraft. The swordplay is the methodical, grounded stuff we covered above; you've also got witchcraft on tap. This is blood magic, or Hexes, fuelled by Coen's own blood. It leans far closer to grubby witchcraft than clean fantasy spellcasting.
Night-time Combat (Vampire)
Vampire Coen is faster, meaner, and a whole lot more aggressive. He swaps disciplined swordplay for claws, though you can still draw your sword if you prefer. The trade-off is that your Hexes are off the table until sunrise.
The Hexes you use during the day are locked off, replaced instead by Vampirism. These abilities are locked behind your ability to feed off the blood of enemies. You can feed off human enemies to do this, while also regaining HP. Animals will also give you a small amount of health back.
Note: Feeding on enemies does not grant any immunity, so if the enemy has friends nearby, they can and will attack you.
Beyond the basics, there are named powers worth chasing. One leaps from the shadows to drain an enemy and top off your HP; another stuns weaker foes so you can pick your moment to dive in or bail. There's also Wolf Form, which turns you into an actual wolf for legging it across the countryside at speed.
Some of the juicier vampire abilities are locked behind blood mutations, so to unlock them you hunt down specific named vampires and drain them. That costs time segments and cranks up your Infamy with Brencis' forces, so power always has a price. And yes, combat stays directional at night too, so blocking and parrying carry over. But Omni combat is available here also.
Difficulty Modes
There are four difficulty settings to pick from: Story, Fair (normal), Challenging, Duelist. On the higher tiers, the directional indicators get switched off entirely, so instead of the UI telling you where to block, you're reading your opponent's body language and reacting to what's actually on screen.
This is an interesting take, and it comes directly from game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who said he wanted to make it harder, without just making the numbers higher. Speaking to GameInformer, he said:
I hope that when people have fun with the combat, they will try the higher difficulty levels. In them, we turn off these indicators, and you won't have U.I. showing in which direction you should fight, but you're observing your opponents and reacting to what's happening on screen. It's a really cool and unique experience.
This isn't a "souls-like"; this is an open-world RPG with a story that matters.
Weapons and Progression
Weapons and armour come with varied effects and stats, and crucially, each weapon feels different. The speed they swing, the type of damage, etc. Perks and abilities are learned by tracking down or buying manuals, then spending experience points plus a time segment to actually lock them in, so progression itself ties back into that 30-day clock.
All of this feeds into three skill trees: Swordmastery, Witchcraft, and Vampirism. Swordmastery and Witchcraft are your human, daytime toolkit; Vampirism is the after-dark arsenal, and a handful of abilities happily cross over into both forms.
FAQ
- Can I play without the directional combat? Yes. The automated omniattack and omniblock system lets you attack and block on a single button if directional fighting isn't for you, and you can switch whenever you like.
- Does combat change between day and night? Massively. Day is sword and Hex magic; night is claws, biting, and vampire mobility.
- How do I heal during combat? As a human, you lean on food and consumables, and as a vampire, you top up your health by biting and feeding on enemies, animals, or villagers.
- Is there a parry system? There is. Match the direction of an incoming attack with your block to parry it cleanly, which deflects the blow without draining your stamina the way holding block does.