Dawnfolk review – GameSpew (2025)

Technically, Dawnfolk is a strategic city builder. Like most titles in the genre, you’ll need to expand your town while ensuring you have enough materials and food to go around — and you’ll also need to be able to protect yourself from incoming threats. The big difference is that Dawnfolk takes a minimalist approach to everything you do, making it far more approachable and entertaining than most other city builders.

A grid-based map forms your land area in Dawnfolk. On each square of the grid, one building or function can be built: maybe you’ll place a field where crops can go, or a settlement where you can increase the number of people in your town. Different types of land can have different functions, too: on woodland squares you can place a woodcutter in order to gather resources, and on water you can place a fishing boat to gather more food.

But you’ll need to balance everything out: a fishing boat costs one person, as does something like a woodcutter or hunting cabin. In return, placing tents or houses for people to live in costs food. It’s important, then, to ensure you have a good balance of everything that’s going in or out.

Dawnfolk has one more magical resource up its sleeve, too: light. The world you inhabit is rather dark and dangerous, and so to explore further afield — and to protect yourself from dark threats — you’ll need a reserve of light. You can gather light by finding it in chests, and you can also build light wells and observatories. Exploring is key to the game, as you’ll uncover new resources and find secrets hidden in chests. But keep in mind that the further away from your settlement you get, the more light it will cost you to explore.

Those threats I mentioned? Initially, you’ll come up against strange, dark whirlwinds that promise to destroy everything in its path. But as long as you have enough light stored up, you can quickly destroy it in one go. As you progress through Dawnfolk and move onto future levels, you’ll encounter different threats, too, like wolves that can eat your livestock, pirates who are poised to attack, and more.

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Every individual level of Dawnfolk has one key goal to complete. Maybe it’s to gather X amount of resources, or to uncover a certain amount of new squares. But look at the pause menu on any level and you’ll discover a range of sub-objectives, too. Completing these will reward you with a form of currency that can be used to unlock new levels, higher difficulties and different modes.

Head to the main menu and you’ll find plenty of features waiting to be unlocked. There’s a daily challenge, puzzle levels, multiple difficulties for each main level, and plenty more. Considering Dawnfolk’s asking price of £12.79, there’s an awful lot of content here. It’s great value.

More importantly, though, it’s also seriously enjoyable to play. I’m not the biggest fan of strategy and city building games, but Dawnfolk’s minimalist approach to the genre works very well. There’s nothing too complex to get your head around, and seeing your town grow is rewarding and straightforward. Other than figuring out the best way how to manage your resources, there are no complicated rules or systems to learn: you can hit the ground running straight away.

The levels are nicely varied too, despite the premise always being the same. You’ll come up against areas with different land layouts, such as an area mostly made up of water, or a dry desert that initially can’t be built upon. These different challenges test you in a fun way, and you’ll need to think carefully about how best to utilise the land you have.

If the idea of a simple city builder appeals to you, there’s plenty to love about Dawnfolk. This is the ideal city builder for people who like the idea of growing a settlement but have struggled with the genre in the past. It’s fun to play, it’s easy to learn, and there’s plenty of content to unlock. What’s not to like?