Dawn of the Peacemakers Review – Doing Everything by Doing Absolutely Nothing

Disclaimer: Dawn of Peacemakers was provided for free by Snowdale Design, although the writing and opinions of this article are my own.

Have you seen the Tuxedo Mask meme? The one where he says to Sailor Moon: “My work here is done.” Sailor Moon replies, “But you didn’t do anything.” And then he waves his cloak, saying, “Didn’t I?”

It sums up Dawn of Peacemakers pretty well. It’s a board game in which you do nothing, yet at the same time, you do everything.

In it, you’re a peacemaker who’s been summoned to quell the brewing battle between the great Macaw and Ocelot empires. Over twelve scenarios, you are thrown into conflict after conflict, with the goal of stopping it all.

You do this by killing off units of each army demoralizing the rest of the army, or prolonging the conflict and causing both armies to tire out. Alternatively, the scenario may come with its objectives and path to victory.

Given that description, you might imagine yourself a rouge operative secretly taking out battlefield combatants. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, you play it like an advisor, where you can influence but not interact with these armies. Think Jafar from Aladdin – but like a good guy Jafar.

This makes for a fascinating puzzle to solve. But feels like you’re on the sidelines for most of the game. Watching these two armies battle it out, you’ll have many turns where your best move is to pass.

Sway the Tides of War

When you do get involved, the actions you take are non-combative and aren’t immediately realised. For example, you can’t actively kill off a unit of either army.

Because of this passiveness, Dawn of Peacemakers lulls you into thinking your actions are meaningless. However untrue this is, it does take a couple of plays to understand this unique dynamic.

Once you get a hang of it though, the game transforms. Soon you’ll find yourself helping both armies and slyly influencing them towards a stalemate.

This theme and gameplay of peacemaking are wildly different to anything I’ve played before, and surprisingly it works incredibly well.

Although, it’s not without its frustrations. For example, if one army runs out of motivation then the other army takes the win. So trying to simultaneously lower both armies without one ever running out, means every game of Dawn of Peacemakers ends in a manufactured cliffhanger.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve played well, or been efficient with your moves. Everything depends on the last few moves of the game. While this creates a very tense finale, it left me wondering why I bother doing anything for the first three-quarters of the game.

Great Writing, Shocking Twists!

Like Pandemic and other cooperative games, the more players you add to Dawn of Peacemakers the less influence you have over the game. For this reason, I preferred playing it solo or with two players as it allowed me more control over the outcome.

But before you throw out the idea of maxing your player count. There’s a mechanic introduced within the campaign that drastically changes the way you seek victory. To the point, you’ll no longer be able to trust other players to do the right thing.

However, playing with the lower player count meant I could take time to dive through the lore. Each scenario has a story, and each unit has its backstory. There’s some great writing within Dawn of Peacemakers, with the small exception of the self-indulgent naming conventions.

Sure, it’s a trope of fantasy writing. But every time I can’t discern the name of a location from a cat scattering across the keyboard my immersion is broken.

Throughout this campaign, you’ll unlock new battlefields, mechanics, and components. While I’m just over halfway through, everything unlocked has been a shock.

Not all the new additions are gold though, as some cannibalise the elegance of the game. Adding a greater burden of rules than the gameplay experience they provide.

It’s Not You, It’s Me

Dawn of Peacemakers focuses on building the world, rather than your characters. So throughout the campaign, the world changes, but your character largely stays the same. No asymmetric powers, no levelling up, no personalised story pieces – or very few.

This was a bit saddening, as the rewards for each campaign level didn’t feel personal. Therefore I didn’t feel the same attachment as I would in other games.

Otherwise, Dawn of Peacemakers shares the same issues as other campaign games. Once you complete the campaign, it’ll never be as good. As the surprise of the story unfolding, or the unwrapping of different packages can’t be replicated.

However, the way Sami Laakso and his team add and subvert the conventions of the genre is one of the things I loved about his design of Dale of Merchants. And he brings more of that same style here. Creating an experience like none other I’ve played, and one worthy of praise.

However, because of how inactive Dawn of Peacemakers feels to play it leaves me in a weird position, where I both enjoy the game and feel lukewarm about it. Although it must be said, I’m looking forward to finishing my campaign and following the story to its conclusion.

For a more spoiler-heavy review, read the second, shorter review of Dawn of Peacemakers I wrote after I finished the campaign.