Dawngate Review

The system requirements are a hefty, so you might need a more powerful computer in order to play it. The first thing that you have to do in Dawngate is choose the kind of “Shaper” you want to be. Shapers are the magical being you can get to control and they have lots of special skills that help them destroy their enemies with ease. Unlike in other free to play video games, you cannot alter the appearance of your main character. There’s just a preset list of Shapers, but they come in all shapes and sizes. Some look human, while others are more monster-like in appearance. Different Shapers have unique abilities, so it pays to choose one that suits your playing style.

Much like every other MOBA, Dawngate plays from a semi-isometric camera viewpoint. Players that like the Diablo series will be familiar with this particular camera style. The controls of the game are fairly simple too as you move and attack enemies simply by right clicking. Right clicking allows your character to do their most basic attack. It can be a ranged or melee attack, depending on the Shaper you have chosen.

To execute Shapers’ more powerful skills, these are mapped to the QWER keys on the keyboard. They are more powerful than normal attacks and are quite cool to use. There is a cool down period, so you cannot use them all the time. As you progress further into Dawngate, you can increase the effectiveness of you skills to make them more powerful and dangerous. Similar to skills and abilities, Shapers also have a set of their spells that they can conjure up. These are mapped to the 1, 2 and 3 keys on the keyboard. They’re quite fun to use and vary up the combat somewhat.

Visually, Dawngate looks great and has graphics similar to the design of World of Warcraft. The character models look great and the environments are bright and highly detailed. It has a cartoon-ish look that makes it visually appealing. The production values of the game are also very high so it looks and sounds much better than other free to play video games out there.

The most important thing you have to know is that Dawngate will no longer be playable as EA plans to take the game offline very soon. The game had been in open beta for a while, but factors made them decide to no longer fully develop the game and keep its servers up. As of November 2014, the game will only be up for a further 90 days so there’s only one more month for you to play it!

The only reason I feel that Dawngate didn’t live up to EA’s expectations is because the free to play MOBA genre is pretty crowded. Not to mention most people go and play League of Legends instead which has quickly become one of the most popular games of any genre at the moment. Dawngate sadly failed to stand out and EA didn’t feel too many people were playing the game to continue developing it any further.

If you love the MOBA genre, Dawngate is an enjoyable game that looks and plays as great as any other game out there. It’s too bad EA pulled the plug on the game prematurely as the game could have had more recognition if League of Legends and DOTA 2 weren’t around first. If you want to play the game, I suggest you go ahead and download it right now before the servers go offline forever later this month.