The Blood of Dawnwalker Endgame Guide: What to Do Before the Final Quest

There is no traditional point-of-no-return warning in The Blood of Dawnwalker — the game simply stops after an ending and returns you to the title screen. Everything you skipped is then only reachable by reloading an older save. This guide explains what the endgame of The Blood of Dawnwalker actually is, what to finish before the final quest, and exactly how much carryover exists after the credits.

When the Endgame Starts in The Blood of Dawnwalker

The endgame begins once you have defeated all three Boyars — Ambrus, Bakir, and Xanthe — by working through their court activities and winning their boss quests. At that point three things happen in sequence:

1. Your Infamy is at or near its maximum (level 9). Each Infamy level you gained along the way applied negative Edicts — more patrols, higher vendor prices — so the world is at its most hostile.
2. Skip time to the next day and you get the cutscene where the Infamy Edicts are read out, followed by a message: Brencis wants to parley.
3. The final quest, A Deal with the Devil, is added to your journal. This is the door to every ending in The Blood of Dawnwalker.

The Five Things to Finish Before A Deal with the Devil

Once the final quest is available, work through this checklist before starting it. None of these steps expire — side content in The Blood of Dawnwalker does not fail from time passing — so you can take the days you need.

1. Finish Lacra”s questline. Her chain (A Friend Like This, Song of the Mountain, Hive and Seek, Our Rotten Roots, The Night of Horrors, and finally Midnight Reckoning) is the setup for one of the four full endings. Skipping it does not lock the ending forever, but redoing a whole questline from a reload costs more time than doing it now.
2. Finish Crake and the Manumit chain. The Firebrand, Shadows in the Woods, Where Loyalty Lies, What Hunts the Night, What Moves the Dead, and Who Pulls the Strings lead to the Manumit ending quests. This chain also feeds the route to The Turncoat ending.
3. Confirm all three Boyars are dealt with. Undealt-with Boyars reappear as minibosses inside Greifberg Castle during the ending quests, replacing regular enemies. The final stretch is visibly easier if the castle only contains its normal garrison — see the main quest order if you lost track.
4. Decide on Xanthe. Unlike the other two Boyars, you can kill Xanthe or make a deal with her during The Cycle of Love. Dealing with her pays off inside the castle: she stops supernatural enemies from spawning in one of the final areas. Betrayed or ignored, she appears there as an enemy instead.
5. Make a dedicated manual save in a fresh slot. The Blood of Dawnwalker offers 54 manual save slots — use them. This save is your key to all seven endings without a replay, as explained in the endings guide.

How the Final Quest Decides Your Ending

Here is the mechanic almost nobody expects: your earlier story choices barely matter for which ending you get. Only the dialogue choices during A Deal with the Devil — and which allies you completed questlines for — decide the outcome. Agree to Brencis”s offer and you get The Turncoat, which skips the final boss fight entirely. Refuse, and who stands beside you against Brencis depends on whether Lacra”s or Crake”s questlines are done: alone for The Folk Hero, with Lacra for The Patricide, with Crake for The Knyazmaker.

One timing constraint matters: reach the ending within 30 in-game days if you want the family-rescue outcome. A focused main-path run takes under 10 days, so a completionist pace is safe; a dawdling one is not. The 30-day limit and how time works as a currency is covered in the beginner guide.

After the Story: What Actually Carries Over

Be clear about this before you commit, because The Blood of Dawnwalker is stricter than most RPGs:

• No free-roam after an ending. When the credits roll, you are returned to the title screen. To keep playing, you must reload a save from before the final quest.
• No New Game Plus. There is no NG+ mode; a second playthrough starts fresh.
• No mission replay. Once a quest is done, it is done; the only “chapter select” is your own archive of manual saves, which is why rotating save slots is the single most repeated advice about The Blood of Dawnwalker.
• Going past 30 days is not the end of the world. You get the bad ending (Time Runs Out), your family is sacrificed, and you can still free-roam and finish other endings — but The Turncoat route and the In the Nick of Time achievement are gone for that run.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a point of no return in The Blood of Dawnwalker? Effectively, yes: starting the final quest A Deal with the Devil. Everything before it remains available, and nothing in the open world expires on a timer, so finish cleanup first.

Can I do the endgame in any order? Yes. The Boyars can be tackled in any order, and Lacra”s and Crake”s questlines progress independently of them. Only the final quest itself locks anything.

Should I deal with Xanthe or kill her? Dealing with her makes the castle assault easier (no supernatural wave in one area) and changes some scenes; killing her is permanent. If you are chasing every ending, keep a save before The Cycle of Love and try both — the choices guide explains how consequences branch from exactly this kind of call.

What is the fastest way to see all endings? One playthrough. Finish both ally questlines and all three Boyars, save in a fresh slot before A Deal with the Devil, then reload that save after each ending. The full route is step-by-step in the endings guide.