The Game Census
Back to the Dawn cover art

Back to the Dawn

Metal Head Games · Spiral Up Games · 2025-07-17

SteamPlayStation Store

AdventureIndieRPGSimulationStrategy

Modes: Single player · Perspectives: Bird view / Isometric

Releases: Nov 03, 2023 (PC (Microsoft Windows)), Jul 18, 2025 (Xbox Series X|S), Jul 18, 2025 (Xbox One), Mar 05, 2026 (Nintendo Switch), Mar 05, 2026 (Nintendo Switch 2), Oct 22, 2026 (PlayStation 5)

Back to the Dawn is a story-rich RPG set in a high-security prison ruled by factions and buried secrets. Investigate two conspiracies from the inside, gather evidence, and outsmart a system designed to silence you. Make friends (or foes) with fellow inmates and with their help, break out of prison.

Back to the Dawn is an Adventure, Indie, RPG, and Simulation game released in 2025, priced at $23.99, with an estimated 200,000 .. 500,000 owners and a Very Positive review sentiment (94% of 10304 reviews).

410
playing now
94%
positive of 10k reviews
Very Positive
steam's rating (official)
200,000–500,000
owners (SteamSpy est.)
0
twitch viewers (latest)
85/100
critic score (1 outlets, IGDB)
78/100
IGDB user rating (7 ratings)
6
Nexus mods (477 downloads)
4.02★
PlayStation Store rating (108 ratings)
gold
deck/linux tier (ProtonDB)
Verified
Steam Deck (Valve)
SteamOS: Playable
$23.99
steam price (US)

410 players in-game as of 2026-10-14 12:00 UTC (census sample)

Back to the Dawn is a 2025 indie role-playing video game developed by Metal Head Games and published by Spiral Up Games. The early access version of the game was released for Windows and Xbox Series X/S in late 2023. Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 obtained the game with no early access version in early 2026. At this time, the game exclusively featured the story of Thomas the Fox, but with the full release of the game on 18 July 2025 a second playable character was added: Bob the Panther, an undercover intelligence agent.

Trailer

Back to the Dawn trailer thumbnail

Back to the Dawn - Official PS5 Release Date Trailer

≈1,000,000 YouTube results for this game's trailer search

Health check

Cooling
  • · 410 players in-game at the last census sample.
  • · 914 reviews in the last 8 weeks (~114/week).
  • · Review velocity down 72% vs the prior 8 weeks.
  • · Top 3% of 28,771 Adventure games in the census by review count.
Estimated sales: 210k–472k copies

Review-multiple estimate from 10,491 total reviews — how this is computed.

All-time low: $15.99 at GreenManGaming (2023-11-17)via IsThereAnyDeal

12-month high $23.99 · on sale 22 of 45 observed days (census price snapshots)

Review momentum

PositiveNegative
2.0k2.0k20232026Week of 2023-11-01: 2,039 positiveWeek of 2023-11-01: 307 negativeWeek of 2023-12-01: 331 positiveWeek of 2023-12-01: 17 negativeWeek of 2024-01-01: 216 positiveWeek of 2024-01-01: 11 negativeWeek of 2024-02-01: 193 positiveWeek of 2024-02-01: 18 negativeWeek of 2024-03-01: 135 positiveWeek of 2024-03-01: 9 negativeWeek of 2024-04-01: 76 positiveWeek of 2024-04-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2024-05-01: 86 positiveWeek of 2024-05-01: 11 negativeWeek of 2024-06-01: 76 positiveWeek of 2024-06-01: 20 negativeWeek of 2024-07-01: 139 positiveWeek of 2024-07-01: 26 negativeWeek of 2024-08-01: 89 positiveWeek of 2024-08-01: 7 negativeWeek of 2024-09-01: 143 positiveWeek of 2024-09-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2024-10-01: 97 positiveWeek of 2024-10-01: 5 negativeWeek of 2024-11-01: 118 positiveWeek of 2024-11-01: 7 negativeWeek of 2024-12-01: 97 positiveWeek of 2024-12-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2025-01-01: 60 positiveWeek of 2025-01-01: 7 negativeWeek of 2025-02-01: 50 positiveWeek of 2025-02-01: 5 negativeWeek of 2025-03-01: 46 positiveWeek of 2025-03-01: 7 negativeWeek of 2025-04-01: 54 positiveWeek of 2025-04-01: 5 negativeWeek of 2025-05-01: 53 positiveWeek of 2025-05-01: 6 negativeWeek of 2025-06-01: 86 positiveWeek of 2025-06-01: 7 negativeWeek of 2025-07-01: 1,178 positiveWeek of 2025-07-01: 96 negativeWeek of 2025-08-01: 944 positiveWeek of 2025-08-01: 38 negativeWeek of 2025-09-01: 295 positiveWeek of 2025-09-01: 15 negativeWeek of 2025-10-01: 149 positiveWeek of 2025-10-01: 16 negativeWeek of 2025-11-01: 370 positiveWeek of 2025-11-01: 8 negativeWeek of 2025-12-01: 124 positiveWeek of 2025-12-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2026-01-01: 125 positiveWeek of 2026-01-01: 10 negativeWeek of 2026-02-01: 136 positiveWeek of 2026-02-01: 7 negativeWeek of 2026-03-01: 137 positiveWeek of 2026-03-01: 8 negativeWeek of 2026-04-01: 76 positiveWeek of 2026-04-01: 12 negativeWeek of 2026-05-01: 104 positiveWeek of 2026-05-01: 6 negativeWeek of 2026-06-01: 69 positiveWeek of 2026-06-01: 5 negativeWeek of 2026-07-01: 80 positiveWeek of 2026-07-01: 11 negativeWeek of 2026-08-01: 17 positiveWeek of 2026-08-01: 1 negative
Weekly review counts (Steam review histogram). Positive above the line, negative below.

Players online

559582026-09-15 13:00 — 261 players2026-09-16 21:00 — 58 players2026-09-18 05:00 — 140 players2026-09-19 12:00 — 266 players2026-09-20 20:00 — 71 players2026-09-22 04:00 — 131 players2026-09-23 11:00 — 169 players2026-09-24 19:00 — 80 players2026-09-26 02:00 — 117 players2026-09-27 10:00 — 224 players2026-09-28 17:00 — 112 players2026-09-30 01:00 — 63 players2026-10-01 08:00 — 213 players2026-10-02 16:00 — 352 players2026-10-03 23:00 — 88 players2026-10-05 07:00 — 382 players2026-10-06 15:00 — 485 players2026-10-07 22:00 — 98 players2026-10-09 06:00 — 294 players2026-10-10 13:00 — 559 players2026-10-11 21:00 — 133 players2026-10-13 05:00 — 246 players2026-10-14 12:00 — 410 players
Concurrent players, hourly average, last 30 days (census samples).
2.2k71Nov 2023Aug 2026Nov 2023 — avg 1,568 · peak 5,920Dec 2023 — avg 452 · peak 1,154Jan 2024 — avg 253 · peak 705Feb 2024 — avg 242 · peak 673Mar 2024 — avg 133 · peak 297Apr 2024 — avg 105 · peak 228May 2024 — avg 105 · peak 272Jun 2024 — avg 91 · peak 217Jul 2024 — avg 171 · peak 413Aug 2024 — avg 119 · peak 342Sep 2024 — avg 195 · peak 607Oct 2024 — avg 136 · peak 314Nov 2024 — avg 134 · peak 364Dec 2024 — avg 128 · peak 279Jan 2025 — avg 106 · peak 227Feb 2025 — avg 99 · peak 251Mar 2025 — avg 72 · peak 164Apr 2025 — avg 71 · peak 188May 2025 — avg 80 · peak 194Jun 2025 — avg 147 · peak 460Jul 2025 — avg 2,220 · peak 9,624Aug 2025 — avg 1,869 · peak 7,000Sep 2025 — avg 499 · peak 1,543Oct 2025 — avg 303 · peak 801Nov 2025 — avg 216 · peak 440Dec 2025 — avg 227 · peak 595Jan 2026 — avg 263 · peak 634Feb 2026 — avg 325 · peak 802Mar 2026 — avg 367 · peak 1,000Apr 2026 — avg 289 · peak 747May 2026 — avg 256 · peak 701Jun 2026 — avg 192 · peak 460Jul 2026 — avg 224 · peak 486Aug 2026 — avg 217 · peak 487
Monthly average players (source: steamcharts.com) — history via steamcharts.com; live census sampling since Aug 2026.

Chart history

PositiveNegative
24242026-10-012026-10-142026-10-01: 24 new positive2026-10-02: 1 new positive2026-10-04: 4 new positive2026-10-05: 2 new positive2026-10-05: 1 new negative2026-10-07: 5 new positive2026-10-09: 1 new positive2026-10-10: 7 new positive2026-10-11: 3 new positive2026-10-12: 3 new positive2026-10-12: 1 new negative2026-10-13: 4 new positive2026-10-13: 1 new negative2026-10-14: 6 new positive2026-10-14: 1 new negative
New Steam reviews per day (census review snapshots). Positive above the line, negative below.

Price history

$23.99$15.992023-11-032026-08-152023-11-03 — best price $17.592023-11-22 — best price $17.992024-01-04 — best price $19.992024-02-16 — best price $19.992024-03-11 — best price $19.992024-03-30 — best price $17.882024-05-09 — best price $17.592024-05-19 — best price $17.592024-07-11 — best price $19.992024-07-31 — best price $19.992024-08-04 — best price $19.992024-10-24 — best price $16.992024-11-22 — best price $16.992024-12-13 — best price $16.992025-01-11 — best price $19.992025-02-09 — best price $19.992025-05-01 — best price $19.992025-06-27 — best price $16.992025-07-31 — best price $19.992025-08-19 — best price $20.392025-09-23 — best price $21.592025-10-30 — best price $21.592025-11-18 — best price $17.882025-12-12 — best price $20.392026-01-10 — best price $23.992026-02-16 — best price $19.192026-03-20 — best price $19.192026-04-27 — best price $19.192026-05-16 — best price $23.992026-06-21 — best price $19.192026-07-10 — best price $23.992026-08-01 — best price $23.992026-08-15 — best price $23.99
Lowest recorded price across tracked stores, per day (census snapshots).

Attention

140302026-05-13 — 74 pageviews2026-05-17 — 115 pageviews2026-05-21 — 74 pageviews2026-05-25 — 54 pageviews2026-05-29 — 49 pageviews2026-06-02 — 41 pageviews2026-06-06 — 48 pageviews2026-06-10 — 37 pageviews2026-06-14 — 30 pageviews2026-06-18 — 37 pageviews2026-06-22 — 38 pageviews2026-06-26 — 136 pageviews2026-06-30 — 38 pageviews2026-07-04 — 107 pageviews2026-07-08 — 140 pageviews2026-07-12 — 56 pageviews2026-07-16 — 54 pageviews2026-07-20 — 88 pageviews2026-07-24 — 64 pageviews2026-07-28 — 54 pageviews2026-08-01 — 48 pageviews2026-08-05 — 46 pageviews2026-08-09 — 60 pageviews2026-08-13 — 53 pageviews2026-08-17 — 55 pageviews2026-08-21 — 60 pageviews2026-08-25 — 64 pageviews2026-08-29 — 57 pageviews2026-09-02 — 52 pageviews2026-09-06 — 46 pageviews2026-09-10 — 49 pageviews2026-09-14 — 48 pageviews2026-09-18 — 34 pageviews2026-09-22 — 35 pageviews2026-09-26 — 63 pageviews2026-09-30 — 53 pageviews2026-10-04 — 43 pageviews2026-10-08 — 92 pageviews2026-10-12 — 79 pageviews
Daily Wikipedia pageviews (attention proxy, census-recorded).

Twitch viewers

17k02026-10-01 09:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-01 18:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-02 20:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-03 05:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-03 14:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-03 23:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-05 00:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-05 09:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-05 18:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-06 18:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-07 03:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-07 11:12 — 17,149 viewers2026-10-07 15:34 — 12,878 viewers2026-10-07 21:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-08 16:12 — 12,740 viewers2026-10-08 22:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-09 07:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-09 13:12 — 7,820 viewers2026-10-09 17:34 — 10,069 viewers2026-10-10 10:12 — 7,160 viewers2026-10-10 18:35 — 0 viewers2026-10-11 03:34 — 5 viewers2026-10-11 12:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-11 21:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-12 21:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-13 06:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-13 15:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-14 17:34 — 0 viewers2026-10-14 22:34 — 0 viewers
Hourly Twitch viewers (census snapshots).

Completion

46
achievements tracked
77%
earned "The Fool"
11%
median achievement earned by

Global achievement rates from Steam.

Details

WindowsFull controller supportSingle-playerSteam AchievementsFull controller supportSteam Trading CardsColor AlternativesAdjustable DifficultyStereo SoundSteam CloudFamily Sharing3 DLC

8 supported languages: Simplified Chinese, English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish - Latin America, Vietnamese

Post-launch support: 3 DLC released, first 2025-07-18 (Steam store data)

Console footprint

PlatformPlayers trackedCompletionTrophies/achievements
Xbox Series, Xbox One (Xbox)3,3791%46
Steam (Steam)1,9593%46
Switch 2 (Nintendo)150%0
Switch (Nintendo)90%0

Players tracked by Exophase (achievement/trophy trackers) — a sample of the player base, not total sales.

Where its players are

Share of Steam reviews by language (top languages measured) — a proxy for where the player base lives.

Player tags

RPGCrimeDramaIndieMysteryAdventureDetectiveSimulationStory RichSingleplayer

Census log

Computed from census-recorded observations only — dates are observation dates.

Recent updates

Players also track

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Similarity via IGDB.

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