Back to the Dawn
Main game
3.44 average rating based on 9 ratings
- Developers
- Metal Head Games
- Publishers
- Spiral Up Games
- Events
- Indie Arena Booth Hybrid 2022, Indie World Showcase 3.3.2026, +5 moreIndie Arena Booth Hybrid 2022, Indie World Showcase 3.3.2026, Indie Live Expo 2024.12.7, Gamescom Latam Countdown 2024, Best Indie Games Summer Showcase 2024, Indie Live Expo Winter 2023, Bitsummit X-Roads less
- Platforms
- Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
- Genres
- Adventure, Indie, Role-playing (RPG), Simulator, Strategy
- Themes
- Mystery
- Steam
- View on Steam
Release Dates
User Stats
How Long Is Back to the Dawn?
The (furry) Escapists
I spent 30 hours on this to get the bad end?! I was literally ONE DAY away from escaping!
It is kind of a grind and very opaque game, so having such a hard deadline, I did not know the election ends the game, was very frustrating!
Perhaps the game is designed for multiple runthroughs, but I only play things once. I want my run to be the canon run! This is not a roguelike! There are so many ways you can accomplished but I do not feel like they on-board you very well.
By the time I figured out what how to play it was too late to get a positive ending. I love the art and the story was interesting enough but everything else about it was too... yuck!
Like I said, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
V1CGaming's review of Back to the Dawn
Back to the Dawn is a fascinating game at first glance, due to its uncanny mix of prison, animals, and laid back music. But as you dive into its systems and figure out what your goals are, you run into a sort of identity issue. Does this game want to be open-ended or not? It’s hard to tell, and the rush to complete goals within a strict time limit betrays the offerings of things to do and people to meet. This confusion between what this experience does or doesn’t want to be, and a surprising lack of personality beneath the surface, both made my time with this adventure feel laborious.
Finished Back to the Dawn up and saw a very bad ending, then the game revealed that it's one of those games where you're expected to New Game+ through it as really the only reasonable way of getting better endings. I can definitely see that there are many different lines through game (even has two completely distinct characters with distinct stories to play as, with maybe a third one that you can unlock through play), and I think it's interesting that there's such a panoply of choice. But I'd be more encouraged to New Game+ it if it had some slightly better quality of life things to skip time or repeat actions automatically.
Tried this out on a whim because it’s on Game Pass and I must say I am pleasantly surprised. It has some great writing and surprising depth to the RPG gameplay. I like it quite a bit and recommend folks check it out, you might be surprised.