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Without a Dawn
Without a Dawn is a dark, psychological, and philosophical visual horror novel featuring hauntingly beautiful pseudo-ASCII art.
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-04 · quoted reviews as of 2026-05-19.
What reviewers agree on
54 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“Visually unique, great audio, eerie, anxious and paranoid vibes. A mature, depressed setting that's initially endearing. The setting itself feels nice. However, the “game” is completed in less than an hour, no choice…”
“Without a Dawn has striking art direction, and the audio design does a great job of setting the mood. Visually and sonically, it absolutely delivers. Unfortunately, the story itself left a lot to be desired. I…”
“Without a Dawn is a narrative-driven horror-adjacent game about a woman slowly losing her grip on reality. This is definitely more an experience than a game, but the vibes are there and the art is gorgeous. It is quite…”
46 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“First of all, the style of this game is hauntingly heautiful! I also liked that I could change the colors/background/style of the symbols that made up the Images to my own liking. It's a short, yet well-written story,…”
“One critic I see of this game is that choices don't matter - no matter how much you may prefer one option, clicking it is met with an inability to move forward without deffering to the other option. It's an excellent…”
“A short, thought-provoking experience. As the developer acknowledges himself, this is more of an art piece than a videogame, but that is okay, because it's a fine one at that. I especially enjoyed the visual style and…”
24 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“Visually unique, great audio, eerie, anxious and paranoid vibes. A mature, depressed setting that's initially endearing. The setting itself feels nice. However, the “game” is completed in less than an hour, no choice…”
“Without a Dawn has striking art direction, and the audio design does a great job of setting the mood. Visually and sonically, it absolutely delivers. Unfortunately, the story itself left a lot to be desired. I…”
“A short, thought-provoking experience. As the developer acknowledges himself, this is more of an art piece than a videogame, but that is okay, because it's a fine one at that. I especially enjoyed the visual style and…”
16 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“Overwhelmingly short, but sweet. Grab on a sale, dim the lights, and get through it in one sitting without distracitons.”
“I got this with a bundle and really admired the aesthetic before I started it! Without a Dawn is visual novel-esque with pretty easy-to-figure-out puzzles/dialogue to break up story beats. The game itself is pretty…”
“I played this game without any expectations, but I definitly didnt expected it to be such a artwork. The game is short and the gameplay is almost only clicking left mouse but the atmosphere the game creates trough the…”
4 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“I wish Steam had another option other than "Do you recommend? Yes/No" This one is definitely more of a conditional yes with qualifiers. The art style I think is the biggest draw for this game. It is gorgeous, and I…”
“Great little experience! if you can live in to the emotion of video games. and like to explore your anxieties! greatly recomended!”
“This game had me and my friend thinking the whole time. This, mixed with the plethora of endings makes you feel a sense of dread when something bad happens that you cant control because you know that you messed up at…”
19 of the 103 reviews raise this · 16 of them still recommend the game.
“Visually unique, great audio, eerie, anxious and paranoid vibes. A mature, depressed setting that's initially endearing. The setting itself feels nice. However, the “game” is completed in less than an hour, no choice…”
“Without a Dawn has striking art direction, and the audio design does a great job of setting the mood. Visually and sonically, it absolutely delivers. Unfortunately, the story itself left a lot to be desired. I…”
“When it comes to visual novels, a VN with the illusion of choice is, mostly, a frustrating exercise unless the illusion is so adeptly executed that you don’t mind being misled, and can in fact admire the sleight of hand…”
15 of the 103 reviews raise this · 14 of them still recommend the game.
“Visually unique, great audio, eerie, anxious and paranoid vibes. A mature, depressed setting that's initially endearing. The setting itself feels nice. However, the “game” is completed in less than an hour, no choice…”
“Without a Dawn is a narrative-driven horror-adjacent game about a woman slowly losing her grip on reality. This is definitely more an experience than a game, but the vibes are there and the art is gorgeous. It is quite…”
“The atmosphere is great. The sounddesign especailly is unnerving and uncomfortable. A short yet very intense experience. You can see how much love was put into this, kudos to Jesse! I'd still say to get it on sale. It's…”
10 of the 103 reviews raise this · 9 of them still recommend the game.
“Visually unique, great audio, eerie, anxious and paranoid vibes. A mature, depressed setting that's initially endearing. The setting itself feels nice. However, the “game” is completed in less than an hour, no choice…”
“Didn't feel very nice to play. Think the content warnings need a bit more effort. Bit too bleak of a watch for sufferers of the illnesses they were drawing from. Got this through humble bundle, original price tag is a…”
“The atmosphere is great. The sounddesign especailly is unnerving and uncomfortable. A short yet very intense experience. You can see how much love was put into this, kudos to Jesse! I'd still say to get it on sale. It's…”
7 of the 103 reviews raise this · 5 of them still recommend the game.
“Visually unique, great audio, eerie, anxious and paranoid vibes. A mature, depressed setting that's initially endearing. The setting itself feels nice. However, the “game” is completed in less than an hour, no choice…”
“Without a Dawn has striking art direction, and the audio design does a great job of setting the mood. Visually and sonically, it absolutely delivers. Unfortunately, the story itself left a lot to be desired. I…”
“Didn't feel very nice to play. Think the content warnings need a bit more effort. Bit too bleak of a watch for sufferers of the illnesses they were drawing from. Got this through humble bundle, original price tag is a…”
Counted across 103 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 92.2% positive rating · as of 2026-05-19
“Another game by Jesse Makkonen who is behind the two DISTRAINT titles (and many others but I played only this series). If you had the chance of playing any of his titles then you know what you are about to see is something visually stunning with minimalistic graphics and also…”
— a player, Steam review · 2 hrs played“Short visual novel with ASCII art graphics. The story is basically a creepypasta that takes about half an hour to read. The game has choices but they don't seem to really matter, they are there just for extra text.”
— a player, Steam review · 1 hrs played“I went back and forth on this for a long time which is why I think Steam should implement a middle option other than "its good" or "its bad". Pros: Art style was great and very unique How it handled mental illness and "inner demons" (for lack of a better term) was great Overall…”
— a player, Steam review · 1 hrs playedAchievement stats
Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-09-05.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-25. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-09-04). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
Without a Dawn Korean Localization Now Available!
Thanks to Kim Tae-yi, Without a Dawn is now available in Korean! 😍 [img src="
One Year Anniversary
Today marks exactly one year since I released Without a Dawn. That means Without a Dawn is now one year old! I'm offering 50% off on Steam to celebrate! 🥳🎈
Without a Dawn is now also available on consoles! 🔥
I’ve teamed up with Clickteam (all my games are created with Clickteam Fusion), and they ported and published Without a Dawn to PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox. That said, Without a Dawn is now availabl
Localizations: Ukrainian and Russian!
Thanks to volunteers, Without a Dawn now supports Ukrainian and Russian! 🥳
Localizations: Japanese, German, and Hungarian!
Thanks to some of the kindest people, Without a Dawn now supports Japanese, German, and Hungarian! 🥰
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Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-19.
| Genres | Indie |
| Player tags | Visual Novel · Psychological Horror · Philosophical · Singleplayer · Story Rich · Atmospheric · Moddable · Female Protagonist · Emotional · Realistic · Mystery · Horror (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Steam Achievements · Full controller support · Camera Comfort · Color Alternatives · Keyboard Only Option · Mouse Only Option · Playable without Timed Input |
| Languages | English, Simplified Chinese, Turkish, Italian, Portuguese - Brazil, Spanish - Latin America, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Russian, Ukrainian |
| Controller | Full support |
| Achievements | 10 |
| Official site | https://jessemakkonen.com/ |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: OS *: Windows 7 or later Processor: Dual Core 2.0 GHz Memory: 2 GB RAM Graphics: 512 MB card capable of shader 3.0 DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 100 MB available space Sound Card: DirectX 9c Compliant