If you’re looking for a budget-friendly alternative to The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, try out Dawnlands. Dawnlands is an open-world survival adventure game made by SEASUN GAMES for PC and Android phones.
“How budget-friendly is it?” You ask? Well, it’s completely free! Admittedly, it does have in-app purchases, but you can still go free-to-play. Ready to start your adventure? Here’s the Dawnlands ultimate beginners’ game guide made just for you.
Dawnlands Gameplay – A Stiffer Legend Of Zelda
It’s apparent that the gameplay came straight out of the two recent Legend of Zelda games. From the visuals, to the mechanics. Sprinting and jumping drain your stamina, weapons wear down and eventually break, and you can even use your shield as a surfboard, just like Link.
Is the gameplay as polished as any of the Zelda games? No. The controls can be clunky and sometimes unresponsive, NPCs get stuck in the geometry a lot, and the combat just feels slower. But hey, you take what you can get with a free game.
Hopefully, future updates will add polish to the game and make it a true competitor for budget-friendly Zelda-like games.
Aside from exploration and combat, you can also construct all sorts of structures, such as buildings and railways. Again, just like with Link.
One thing that does separate Dawnlands from the Zelda games, is the multiplayer aspect. You can leave your world and visit other players’ worlds to help them out on difficult missions or battles. If they give you access, you can even farm in their world and build your own house there. Imagine if The Legend of Zelda got Animal Crossing’s multiplayer features, and that’s pretty much what you get with Dawnlands.
Dawnlands Combat Guide
Dawnlands combat – Image Source: SEASUN GAMES
Dawnlands’ combat is less refined than that of the Zelda games. You can use shields to block attacks, but dodging isn’t as easy. Whenever you’re not blocking, it’s best to simply bash your enemies repeatedly or fire at them while backing up if you prefer using long-range weapons.
Some attacks can and should be dodged, especially from larger enemies who telegraph attacks early. But a lot of times, you will find yourself tanking hits. So, always have health food items and potions ready. When your health is low, position yourself in a safe location before eating or taking a potion. Going to the food menu will not pause the game.
Watch out for your hunger meter too. Whenever it’s full, you will slowly regenerate health. However, you can’t eat food while you’re full, so you can’t use food to immediately give you a health boost until your hunger meter drops. You can still take health potions though.
Dawnlands Tips And Tricks
Account for the slight drift
Whether or not it’s intentional is unknown, but you do not stop walking as soon as you let go of your movement controls. Your character will continue walking a little after you let go of WASD or your trackpad.
This can make it very tricky when facing enemies or solving puzzles that require precise movement. Take the puzzle above, for example. The goal is to light up all the squares by stepping on them without backtracking. Normally that would be easy, but not when your character moves when you don’t want them to. Use short taps of movement for puzzles like these.
Always remember: You can’t pause
It’s a weird decision on the developer’s part, but there is currently no way to pause the game. You can log out or go back to the main menu, but then you’ll have to pass through a loading screen to get back in. Definitely too much of a hassle, especially when you’re just going to grab some water or use the bathroom.
Craft, manage your inventory, and look at your map or settings only when you’re in a safe spot.
If you have to AFK, do so in your home or the safety of a village. This will make it easy to recover your items if you happen to die from hunger or anything else while AFK.
Again, this is hopefully something that gets remedied in a future update, but for now, stay safe when AFKing.
Stay home at night
Treat Dawnlands like Minecraft when it comes to the day-night cycle. Lots of aggressive baddies spawn at night.
Sure, that does mean that there are some enemies and loot that you can only acquire at night. Just be prepared when you attempt to.
If you do decide to head out at night, don’t forget to bring a torch. You can equip torches in your off-hand and have a 1-handed weapon on your main hand. Skeletons and other mobs will flee from torches.
Purchase additional inventory slots as soon as you can
Upon arriving at the first shelter, you’ll find the first merchant you can buy stuff from. As soon as you have enough gold, buy the expansion backpacks before anything else. They will give you some much-needed inventory slots.
You’ll find yourself constantly needing to swap out items due to your inventory being full. Be sure to make lots of storage chests. You can even name your storage chests to make managing your stuff less stressful.
You can easily farm proficiency
You can gain proficiency by performing almost any action in the game. Jumping will level up your jumping proficiency, which increases your jump height. Sprinting proficiency will increase your speed and reduce stamina consumption while sprinting.
You can even easily farm weapon proficiency by just hitting unbreakable walls or terrain. This method is great for raising your damage without any risk.
You can view all your current proficiency levels in the character menu.