GamersHell posts a trailer for Kalypso Media's and Sky Fallen's sequel to their 2007 title Dawn of Magic (aka Blood Magic), and the name does appear to be Dawn of Magic 2. They also have a few screenshots up here that date back to the May announcement.

A little bit of confusion over a new game from Russian developer Sky Fallen (Dawn of Magic, aka Blood Magic aka The Bloody Magic) with publisher Kalypso Media revealing Time of Shadows (news at Crispy Gamer) but Rock, Paper, Shotgun says it will be called Dawn of Magic 2.

Worthplaying has a review up for SkyFallen's action rpg, Dawn of Magic, (also know as Blood Magic,) giving it 5.1/10:

Once you begin Dawn of Magic, you start to realize how completely unoriginal the game really is. Everything from the quests (go outside of town and collect 10 termite eggs) to the story (evil sorcerer is on a quest for power) is cribbed from the likes of Diablo and Baldur's Gate. Unfortunately, DoM leaves so much to be desired in its execution that you should really just play one of those other games. It would be a better way to spend your time....

In essence, Dawn of Magic isn't a terrible game. There are some rough issues with the controls and sound, but at its very core, it's a classic hack-'n'-slash RPG. Oddly, the problem is that, it feels too much like a classic hack-'n'-slash RPG. Games like Diablo and Baldur's Gate used the same formula over 10 years ago, and they did it better.

Mixed results for Dawn of Magic in GameBanshee's new review, which awards a score of 7.1/10:

Also fortunately, the combat system is effective. Dawn of Magic uses a fairly standard point-and-click Diablo-style interface, and while it has a few quirks (for example, you can’t map both mouse buttons to spells; you’re stuck with one controlling your weapon, even if you never use it), it doesn’t really cause any problems or get in the way of the action. Meanwhile, the enemies have a lot of variety -- some summon minions, some raise the dead, some teleport, and more -- and the bosses are challenging. During the course of the campaign, I never found myself having too easy or too difficult of a time, and that’s a difficult trick to pull off.

But that’s the end of the good news. The bad news is that Dawn of Magic is a bargain-priced action role-playing game that doesn’t strive to be anything more. Every so often it does something sort of cool -- like it allows you to insert runes into equipment, and if you use them to spell a special word (like “future”) then you get an extra bonus -- but mostly the title doesn’t do anything interesting or memorable, and it’s marred by a lot of sloppiness and repetitive gameplay. 

GamingNexus  posts a less than enthusiastic review of  Skyfallen's action rpg Dawn of Magic (also known as Blood Magic), giving it a score of 5.8/10:

As far as game play itself, Dawn of Magic is pure hack-n-slash. Left-click to run or attack with a weapon, right-click to blast ‘em with a spell, rinse and repeat. There are swarms of monsters to fight, although most of them can simply be kited around the map and sniped to death. In addition, much of the time I’d find my enemies killing themselves much more efficiently than I could manage. Enemy attacks can hit fellow monsters, so I’d often see them accidentally blasting each other in their enthusiasm to catch me. On the flip side, my spells could easily affect innocent bystanders and townsfolk, and more than a few fell to a miss-targeted spell. To make things worse, targeting felt a little off, so I was always missing my enemies because of a poor mouse click. Dawn of Magic also brings back something I thought we’d never have to see in a modern game--the “invisible wall”. Many of the outdoor maps were bounded by these invisible edges, and while it looked like I could happily run through the wilderness in all directions, I’d soon find myself pinned against the edge of the map with swarms of enemies pounding away. This all boils down to a mess of a combat system which quickly lost any semblance of fun. And in a game that’s all combat, I quickly tired of Dawn of Magic altogether.

Three new reviews of Skyfallen's action rpg focusing on the arcane arts, Dawn of Magic, are up, from GameChronicles, IGN and  IGN's UK site.

The first is from IGN,  and goes into quite a bit of detail, with a final score of 5.4/10:

 The best part of Dawn of Magic kicks in right about here. As you learn different types of magic, your character's image is embellished with different physical features. As luck would have it, my combination of Bone, Light, and Fire ended up giving me an absolutely insane-looking character, almost like a Satan clown, with a tail, hooves, huge bone horns, and curved golden spikes for hands. My evil Baker's Wife grew mantis-like claws, possibly because of the poison spell...

... Overall, Dawn of Magic looks pretty old school. Not too fancy, more than a couple jaggies. There are some nice lighting effects, though, lending the colorful environments a lot of warmth. Butterflies and falling leaves sometimes flutter by. Bizarrely, bits of the UI sway or flex in hypnotic motions—perfect for contemplating while letting your HP recharge after nearly getting schooled by a Goblin Matron or some such baddie...

...The box proclaims “A new era of hack ‘n’ slash,” but Dawn of Magic strikes us as more of the same. Tweaks like the character mutations based on what spells you’ve learned are neat, but don’t have an impact on the gameplay itself. Lack of co-op is a disappointment. Despite a promising beginning to the story, general boredom ensued...

There's also a link to the IGN UK review, which is slighty more positive, giving it a score of 6.9/10:

Despite its bold proclamations of reinventing the tried and tested Diablo template, Dawn of Magic remains an RPG with more than a whiff of the past hanging around it. The range and flexibility of the spell system and the game's epic scope (both in terms of challenge and the amount of hours of gameplay) add plenty of value to the package and will no doubt satiate those of you longing for a return to the good old days of action RPG mayhem when Diablo still reigned supreme. Meanwhile, the flexible and dynamic character upgrading system does add longevity and a slant of originality. Throw in some solid multiplayer options enabling you to test out your spell combinations against fellow players and you're left with an RPG romp that entertains but never quite manages to reach magical heights.

The review from Game Chronicles  is very positive with an 8.5/10:

Dawn of Magic is the North American release of the Russian language version known as “Blood Magic”. European gamers also got their crack at Dawn of Magic in April of this year. Dawn of Magic sports the classic Diablo map and control styles, but several new age features are thrown into the fray and you end up with a nice blend of old school and new age gaming.

...All in all, Dawn of Magic is one of the better hack ‘n’ slash RPG titles to come out in some time. I really enjoyed the abundant amount of locations, weapons and spells. Since I favor the mage in most RPGs. I fell right in love with this title. The character morphing was way cool and I think that more games should have this feature. If you are a fan of the tried and true Diablo style gameplay then you will like this game. I highly recommend picking up this title. If you have your doubts there is a demo available out there, but the demo just doesn’t do the game justice.

Games Radar  has posted a short and somewhat prefunctory review of 1C's and SkyFallen's Dawn of Magic, calling it "Yawn of Magic"  and rating it at 5/10:

Dawn of Magic is perhaps one of the least offensive games ever made, but it's also one of the most toothless...

...As its title suggests, Dawn focuses heavily on magic for combat, with a series of strange classes - the Baker's Wife, the Fat Friar, etc. - able to specialize in twelve schools of magic. Spells can be mixed and matched in a somewhat interesting system, but new spells and character upgrades in general come much too slowly. You'll find yourself bored with using the same old fireball spell for the thousandth time long before you receive a more powerful incantation.

...Dawn of Magic attempts some originality in its story. The actual plot - an ancient evil is resurrected - is as rote as they come, but you are given the choice in fighting said baddie or joining with him. Sadly this isn't implemented in any interesting way. You simply choose "Good" or "Evil" when setting up your character at the beginning, and you're on your way to world domination or salvation.

 

Gamezone lets us know that Atari has shipped for N.A. release three of the new titles acquired through their recent agreement with publisher 1C, including Sky Fallen's magic based fantasy rpg, Dawn of Magic, also known during devlopment as Blood Magic and The Bloody Magic. Gamezone has some more information on the game here,  and you can also visit the official website,

This is a brief excerpt from the description there of the magic system:

The Schools of Magic

Besides the "Classical" Hack’n’Slay game mechanics Dawn of Magic offers a deep magic system which gives the player 12 different schools of Magic to choose his spells from. Each school holds 8 powerful spells which all can be learned throughout the game either by finding certain scrolls or by buying them from a merchant. As the player progresses he will be able to invest skill points in these spells to become an almost almighty wizard. Some spells are active casts while other skills are passive and give the wizard an aura or advantage over a certain time.

GameZone has posted a preview of Sky Fallen's magic-oriented RPG, Dawn of Magic. It states the title is due for a Fall 2007 International release, with a N. A. release on October 16.

This is a point-and-click title with a camera that can zoom in as well as an interface that seems more complex than it is. Actually, once you become accustomed to it, everything is within easy click reach and you can navigate it effortlessly.

You begin the game by selecting from four available avatars, a weird gypsy (their description), an awkward scholar, the baker’s wife, and the fat friar. Each comes with an alignment (all good, by the way) as well as ratings in energy, intellect, strength, maximum chi and maximum weight...

...Dawn of Magic is a game that is easy to understand. Nothing truly new has been brought out in this title, it is more of a return to that which defined the genre so many years ago. While this is not a game that will enthrall hardcore, graphic-driven RPGers, those new to the genre might get a decent look at the way the genre used to be and those who like the kind of adventure that slowly unravels as you journey the landscape may find this a pleasant diversion.

 play.tm has the latest review of Dawn of Magic.  Branding it generic and derivative and smacking it with a score of 55%, the review concludes:

If the developers had spent as much time on the rest of the game as they did on the magic system then we may have had a fun game on our hands, as it is we have a game whose single redeeming feature isn't enough to hide the underdeveloped, uninspired and frankly boring nature of the rest. Even playing as the baker's wife can't fix that.

4.6/10 is the score handed down to Dawn of Magic at Jolt:

So, beyond mind-numbing quests and graphics that leave you wondering what might have been, what other lessons has Dawn of Magic not learned from earlier games in the genre? Well there’s combat. I never found anything wrong with being able to hold a mouse button down over an enemy and having my guy attack him until one of us was dead. Selecting a target and then having to repeatedly click like a mad man just seems like a waste of energy to me, especially when guiding your character around is achieved by much the same mechanic. I’m not saying that this is one of the most infuriating systems that I’ve played for ages but ...well, actually yes, perhaps I am saying that. And then having attacks and magic missing for no apparent reason? I’m no longer even going to ask what that’s about.

A site called Dark Zero has a reasonably entertaining review of SkyFallen's Dawn of Magic.  The score is 3.5/10 (I think) and I hate tutorials, so hence this quote:

Let's take a look at one of the first quests you come across. “My children have all run away,” a woman tells you, “and they should be here eating their dinner. Can you bring them back for me?” A bit weird, yeah, but it's hardly the most ridiculous thing we've been asked to do in an RPG. Until, that is, the woman blurts out the following: “Repeat this task many times over for extra skill points!”

I mean, bloody hell. Make your minds up, guys. There's nothing wrong with games that aren't ashamed to be games, but when you're pushing the po-faced 'interactive story' angle with loads of spoken dialogue and fancy FMV sequences, you can't then get away with reminding the player that he's a fat nerd sat behind a desk who's probably quite willing to spend his valuable time clicking little children on a screen to make his character's numbers go up. It's depressing, embarrassing, and easily avoided. Yet even mostly-excellent games like Fable think it's okay to get a professional voice actor spouting crap like “Remember to pick up the green orbs when you kill an enemy, or you won't learn a thing!”

Dawn of Magic reviews are slowly trickling in and this one at GamingHeaven finds some issues but a solid underlying design.  The score is 7.5/10 and here's the intro:

You know how with some games you can tell if they are good or not from a mile away? Or how you can sometimes play a game that is just about perfect on the surface, but there is something wrong with it deep down under it all? You can't point your finger at it, but it's there. Dawn of Magic is the exact opposite. At first glance it is a mediocre Diablo clone that would only interest the die-hard action RPG fans. But the more you play it, the more you realize that the authors managed to strike the nail on the head in terms of progression speed, game world character and unique features.

Speaking of Dawn of Magic, the second review we've tracked is online at Strategy Informer.  The score is a reasonable 7.7/10 and it seems the dual good/evil path is firmly entrenched in the market:

The focus on a dual-storyline approach to the game design is definitely one of Dawn of Magic's strengths, and is generally played up fairly well throughout. You initially align your character to good, evil or neutral, and this affects the manner in which NPC characters react to you throughout the game. Whilst this isn't a truly unique feature, and nowhere near the subtlety of a Bioware title, it's nevertheless welcome in a genre that so often funnels the player from one experience to the next without a thought of any alternative moralistic paths. Given the vast array of Magical abilities on offer, being bad is an attractive proposition.

The second part of Polish site Gry.o2.pl's interview on Dawn of Magic is now up.  Here's a snip:

Klecha (Gry.o2.pl): Will NPC's be included in Dawn of Magic and if so what type of role will they play in the game?

Alexander Chulkov (Skyfallen): Of course there are friendly characters in the realm, and players can actively cooperate with them. Sometimes you can buy a rare artifact from a local trader, NPCs also can provide you with valuable information or give you a task - and a good reward for its fulfillment.

Besides they help to make the world around you real. There are always rushing and busy city-dwellers, guardians on patrolling and shouting merchants. They communicate with each other, share news and react upon any disturbing events - in other words, live their own lives.

Many goals you will face can be achieved only in close cooperation with NPCs. And they won't just give you some task and sit, waiting for your return. Instead they will act rather likely: smugglers will try to delve into a city and find second-hand dealers, while teachers will watch their students and prisoners will never attempt to escape with guardians nearby.

IGN UK has reviewed SkyFallen's Dawn of Magic.  The score of 6.9/10 probably sounds disastrous but the text offers some hope, albeit while highlighting missteps:

On first impressions, the world around you seems vibrant and full of life. Locales teem with NPCs, traders and a wealth of impressively varied and increasingly tough enemies to battle. As you wander around you can exchange pleasantries with peasants and passers-by or trade with salesmen who ply their wares at local towns, while a dynamic day/night cycle adds some visual variety to the fauna and flora-packed locations.

But the illusion of a living world doesn't last long. Once you've scratched the surface of these seemingly lifelike surroundings, you quickly uncover just how hollow and underdeveloped Dawn of Magic's world really is. Citizens reply with the same stock phrases while merchants spew forth the type of hackneyed spiel usually reserved for Sunday markets.

Head over to Worthplaying for a dozen Dawn of Magic screens.

A short preview of SkyFallen's Dawn of Magic is up at GameSpot:

This is a magic-heavy game, and there are more than a dozen different fields of magic that your character can specialize in. Moreover, spells can be combined and blended, which ups the magical possibilities considerably. Magic is your only weapon in the game, as you won't need to rely on swords or bows and arrows. With that said, you can use magic to morph your character into a deadly weapon. Examples include turning your arms into swords or summoning bats to circle around you protectively.

Deep Silver sent over a new press release on Dawn of Magic, this time dealing with locations in the game:

Basingstoke, 18/04/2007 – Deep Silver today announces details concerning the spectacular locations in the upcoming action-RPG Dawn of Magic.

Players will explore beautiful locations in five acts, including a desert, a jungle, hell, a winter landscape, an underwater world, an Asian world and many more. The impressive changes of weather and day and night cycles add to the density of the atmosphere and strengthen the visual appeal of Dawn of Magic.

In Dawn of Magic, Deep Silver whisks gamers away to a world of magic and spellcasting. In the medieval fantasy universe of Dawn of Magic, where magical arts are part of everyday life, evil is omnipresent. Players work their way up from a simple underling to a mighty mage whose spells will cause the screen to erupt with bombastic visual effects. Dawn of Magic offers weeks of excellent hack 'n' slash fun and follows in the footsteps of its great role models Sacred and Diablo 2.

Dawn of Magic will be released on 27 April 2007

For further information regarding the game, please visit the game's official website at

http://dom.deepsilver.com/

Polish site gry.o2.pl has an interview with SkyFallen's Alexander Chulkov about their upcoming action/RPG, Dawn of Magic:

As for Dawn of Magic itself, the game storyline has been written by American Martha Sapeta, while Russian developers were doing game design and programming. That is why we have such a twisted and interesting world.

As you can understand from the title, the main feature of Dawn of Magic is its magic system. Characters are mages first of all, though of course they need weapon as well. You can use broad range of melee weapon to hack and slash your enemies, but even an ordinary goblin can do the same. Rookie mages can rely on brutal strength, yet a truly powerful wizard needs much more. To achieve that you can use numerous artifacts, hidden around the world; what is more important players can enchant any magic item in a way they want. By the way enchanted items are very important when fighting with other players. Duel with other mage is not an easy task, so anything what makes your character stronger is useful.

Our magic system includes over 100 spells. In addition we give players an opportunity to mix them freely, getting access to almost unlimited arsenal. However, though various, most spells have only one purpose - to destroy enemies, who always have superior numbers and must be killed quickly. So, any fan of hack'n'slash won't be bored.

Duck over to Worthplaying for four Dawn of Magic screens.

SkyFallen's Chulkov Alexander has spoken to HEXUS about their action/RPG, Dawn of Magic:

Q: What would you say are the main differences between DoM and Diablo 2?

A: Despite the fact that many called and keep calling DoM ‘the killer of Diablo’ these are two very different games. The first and the most evident difference is that DoM is a game about wizardry. And while our characters are different, all of them are still mages. The entire gameplay is inseparably associated with magic. And even if you have decided to make your hero a heavily armored warrior striking enemies with a huge two-handed axe you will still have to constantly use spells, master and invent ways of how to use them best. Besides, our game is a lot more focused on the plot, ancillary buildings and the world around the hero. Take a look at Avon and you will find that a DoM town is not just a couple of houses and a handful of characters. A town is a great deal of streets and houses, shops and office buildings… A town is a host of people dealing with their own day-to-day needs and often concerned with problems of much higher importance than those of another Magic Academy graduate, what in fact the hero is. DoM is not Diablo 2. It never used or intended to be anything similar.

As expected, Deep Silver has released the demo (530Mb) for SkyFallen's Dawn of Magic.  GameGuru Mania and Strategy Informer wrote in with mirrors and you can also get it from Gamers Hell and Worthplaying.  Here's the blurb from the latter:

Dawn of Magic, also known as Blood Magic, is an action/RPG where the weapon of choice is magic. You control an unlikely hero in an ambitious search through many hostile environments looking for Modo, the ethereal being bent on destroying the world. This multilanguage demo includes half of the first act, multiple characters, spells, one level of difficulty, as well as five multiplayer modes with one map each.

Apparently save games from this demo can be carried over to the retail game.

Worthplaying has news a 530Mb demo for SkyFallen's wizardly action/RPG Dawn of Magic will debut tomorrow.

In their recent habit of revealing game features via press releases, Deep Silver sent over this piece on Dawn of Magic a couple of days ago:

Basingstoke, 28/03/2007 – Deep Silver today announces details concerning the trade and inventory system in the eagerly anticipated action-RPG Dawn of Magic.

In Dawn of Magic, both during trade and in the Inventory screen, items can be sorted by category (e.g. weapons, armor or runes). This saves wasting time by rotating and moving items, and makes playing the game much easier. Each character possesses a certain weight limit, and if it is exceeded, the movement speed is greatly reduced. The limit varies according to the basic character you begin with, but can be increased as you progress through the game. Players who can't bring themselves to part with their "beloved" axe, for example, can summon a trading genie in Dawn of Magic. This old man lets players sell unneeded weapons, armor and other items even in the wilderness or a dungeon, "pawn" items for the time being or stock up on life potions.

He has room for a total of 100 (sometimes stackable) items in his crate that you can demand to have returned to you at any time. In this way, you can store good weapons that can't be used yet owing to high level requirements, and use them later.

Dawn of Magic is scheduled to be released on 27 April 2007.

Worthplaying has kicked up a preview of Dawn of Magic:

At its most basic level, Dawn of Magic is a Diablo 2-esque hack 'n' slash kill-fest. It's actually somewhat surprising just how many concepts have been borrowed from the Diablo series for this game, and not all of them are good ones. With that said, there is one fundamental difference that sets the two irrevocably apart: magic. In this game, hand-to-hand combat should be your last resort.

Over at Worthplaying you'll find 10 new screens for SkyFallen's Dawn of Magic.

Continuing their somewhat unusual process of previewing features from Dawn of Magic through press releases is a new announcement from Deep Silver about two of the magic schools:

Basingstoke, 14/03/2007 – Deep Silver today announces details concerning two particularly imposing schools of magic in the impatiently awaited action RPG Dawn of Magic, namely the School of Fire Magic and the School of Air Magic.

Besides the “classic” hack ‘n’ slash game mechanics, Dawn of Magic features an exhaustive magic system which allows players to select spells from 12 different schools of magic. Each school comprises 8 powerful spells that can be learned during the game by finding certain scrolls, or by purchasing them from traders. Later in the game, players can invest skill points in these spells and progress to the level of an almost omnipotent wizard. Some spells are actively cast, while others are passive and temporarily provide the wizard with an aura or a particular advantage.

Air and Fire Magic are among the most powerful schools of magic in Dawn of Magic.

The School of Fire Magic enables the sorcerer to control flames and conjure them in diverse forms. A mage of this school is one of the deadliest wizards you can face, as he will leave nothing but burned soil in his wake.

Here are two possible spells from the School of Fire Magic:

• Fireball: A fireball is thrown at the enemy. It creates an «Explosion» as it hits the target.

• Fire Mastery: This spell passively increases the immunity and resistance to fire. As a secondary effect, it also adds fire damage to all spells and reduces the Freeze duration.

The School of Air Magic, on the other hand, allows the wizard to control air and many natural phenomena, such as lightning, wind and many more.

Here are two of the most powerful spells from the School of Air Magic:

• Chain Lightning: A bolt of lightning hits the selected enemy, and then jumps over to other nearby enemies.

• Tornado: A large tornado moves toward the enemy. As it travels, it causes a shock effect and rains down lightning on your enemies. When the tornado dissipates, it divides into several «Twister» spells. The wizard needs to learn the «Lightning», «Shock», and «Twister» spells for this.

Dawn of Magic is scheduled to be released on 20 April 2007.

For further information regarding the game, please visit http://dom.deepsilver.com/

Grab eight new screens from Dawn of Magic at Worthplaying.

Dawn of Magic (Blood Magic) has been previewed at Strategy Informer in a hands-on look at SkyFallen's action/RPG:

The game opens with a lavishly-produced cgi movie depicting the fall from grace of a character named Modo. Exiled to Earth from a magical realm, Modo is supposed to live out the rest of his days as a mortal; however this is not to be. Angered by his plight, Modo chooses to attempt to regain his lost power and destroy the world in the process. So far so cliché, but the big twist in the story comes with the inclusion of a Bioware-style morality tree. You can choose to become powerful and stop the plight of the world, or alternatively you can take a darker path and assist your would-be nemesis in the destruction. Your appearance in-game alters as a result of your chosen route; with some suitably evil looking attire and character-morphing if you choose the dark side.

Deep Silver has sent out a press release on the "character morphing" system in Dawn of Magic (Blood Magic, The Bloody Magic):

Basingstoke, 6th March 2007 – Dawn of Magic holds a lot of surprises and unexpected turns in store for its players. One of them is the extensive character morphing system, which gradually adapts each avatar's appearance to the acquired skills and the spells the player has employed.

Thus, a mage dealing with Earth Magic will sprout twigs from his shoulders later in the game, until he ends up looking like a walking tree. A wizard who uses Lightning spells, on the other hand, may turn into a crackling metal suit of armor showering all around him with sparks. In extreme cases, sorcerers may even grow the legs of a spider or the wings of an angel. These effects can be combined in many different ways and not only have visual results, but also directly affect the game, bringing with them bonuses and penalties specific to certain spells. A magician who is experienced only in dealing with electricity may have an advantage when it comes to Air Magic, but his resistance to Water Magic will be low. This sort of interplay is abundant in the game, and guarantees numerous possible game combinations.

More details on the game can be found at http://dom.deepsilver.com.

Dawn of Magic is scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2007.

You can check out the 62 screens accompanying the release at Worthplaying.

Deep Silver has launched a multi-lingual website for Dawn of Magic, SkyFallen's action/RPG where every class is some form of mage that was originally released in Russia and some territories as Blood Magic.  There isn't much to see at this point but keep an eye out for the usual goodies in due course.