The Blood of Dawnwalker's out now—which means that players are getting introduced to its slightly more experimental take on RPG time. For the uninitiated, protagonist Coen has about 30 days and nights to save his family, the ticking clock of which is tracked in the UI. Completing quests, levelling up, and ticking off side-objectives costs "time segments".
The idea, then, is to make it so that players have to (quite literally) spend their time wisely. In practice, this system doesn't have much in the way of actual teeth, acting more as a means to dissuade you from going all completionist on the map. In my playthrough, I've currently killed two out of three of Brencis' lieutenants and I still have 20 comfortable days and nights to spare.
Which is probably why some folks have decided to opt out entirely. The "Better Story Timer" on Nexus Mods has options to triple the already-generous 30 day limit to 90 days, makes it so that perks and skills don't cost any time to obtain, and increases the number of segments in a day from eight to a whopping 32.
This essentially means Coen can take his sweet time, pun intended, moseying around the Vale Sangora without a care in the world while his family rot in a dungeon somewhere. The mod already has over 13,000 downloads, hinting that a lot of folks don't appreciate the ticking clock in their open world RPG.
On the one hand, I sort of get it. The Blood of Dawnwalker's time pressure is, given the game's current generosity, a bit of a fib that mostly just gets in the way of you exploring the map at your own pace. It does have some interesting implications, mind—and I do enjoy being steered towards day-only activities and night-only questlines to keep things interesting.
On the other hand, if you strip those same time mechanics from The Blood of Dawnwalker entirely, it just becomes… well, a pretty decent open-world RPG, but pretty unremarkable. Regardless of my critiques of the system, the time mechanic is one of the most noteworthy things the game has going for it.
Still, it's a controversial feature, and it's no wonder that the posts section of the mod already has around 300 comments in there, most of which can be summed up by "thank god".
Personally, I think Rebel Wolves would do well to include some optional modifiers in the menu—though not because I'm one of those people, actually, quite the opposite. I sort of wish I had less time to complete my tasks. I think having modifiers for relaxed or more tense playthroughs would be a great addition to the game.
Metaphor: ReFantazio got me hooked on the interesting tension that comes from having to manage time pressures, and I think The Blood of Dawnwalker would be a slightly more interesting game if it was meaner. As does Shaun Prescott in our The Blood of Dawnwalker review, who wrote: "In the end, Dawnwalker doesn't have the courage to allow this system to show its fangs. I feel like if it did, we’d have a modern classic on our hands."
