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

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).

199
playing now
94%
positive of 10k reviews
Very Positive
steam rating
200,000–500,000
owners (SteamSpy est.)
85/100
critic score (1 outlets, IGDB)
78/100
IGDB user rating (7 ratings)
gold
deck/linux tier (ProtonDB)
$23.99
steam price (US)

199 players in-game as of 2026-08-30 02:00 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.

Health check

Cooling
  • · 199 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 8% of 11,404 Adventure games in the census by review count.
Estimated sales: 206k–464k copies

Review-multiple estimate from 10,304 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 23 of 49 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

453682026-08-07 00:00 — 126 players2026-08-07 08:00 — 328 players2026-08-07 14:00 — 424 players2026-08-07 22:00 — 80 players2026-08-08 06:00 — 353 players2026-08-08 14:00 — 453 players2026-08-08 22:00 — 115 players2026-08-09 06:00 — 364 players2026-08-09 14:00 — 434 players2026-08-09 22:00 — 83 players2026-08-10 06:00 — 261 players2026-08-10 15:00 — 392 players2026-08-10 23:00 — 84 players2026-08-11 07:00 — 248 players2026-08-11 15:00 — 369 players2026-08-12 22:00 — 85 players2026-08-14 06:00 — 223 players2026-08-15 14:00 — 343 players2026-08-16 22:00 — 70 players2026-08-18 05:00 — 215 players2026-08-19 13:00 — 291 players2026-08-20 20:00 — 68 players2026-08-22 04:00 — 210 players2026-08-23 11:00 — 298 players2026-08-24 19:00 — 126 players2026-08-26 03:00 — 141 players2026-08-27 11:00 — 243 players2026-08-28 18:00 — 120 players2026-08-30 02:00 — 199 players
Concurrent players, hourly average, last 30 days (census samples).

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

159302026-05-13 — 74 pageviews2026-05-16 — 85 pageviews2026-05-19 — 73 pageviews2026-05-22 — 64 pageviews2026-05-25 — 54 pageviews2026-05-28 — 68 pageviews2026-05-31 — 35 pageviews2026-06-03 — 52 pageviews2026-06-06 — 48 pageviews2026-06-09 — 45 pageviews2026-06-12 — 31 pageviews2026-06-15 — 61 pageviews2026-06-18 — 37 pageviews2026-06-21 — 30 pageviews2026-06-24 — 62 pageviews2026-06-27 — 39 pageviews2026-06-30 — 38 pageviews2026-07-03 — 144 pageviews2026-07-06 — 122 pageviews2026-07-09 — 84 pageviews2026-07-12 — 56 pageviews2026-07-15 — 33 pageviews2026-07-18 — 81 pageviews2026-07-21 — 67 pageviews2026-07-24 — 64 pageviews2026-07-27 — 52 pageviews2026-07-30 — 51 pageviews2026-08-02 — 38 pageviews2026-08-05 — 46 pageviews2026-08-08 — 60 pageviews2026-08-11 — 70 pageviews2026-08-14 — 45 pageviews2026-08-17 — 55 pageviews2026-08-20 — 60 pageviews2026-08-23 — 64 pageviews2026-08-24 — 50 pageviews
Daily Wikipedia pageviews (attention proxy, census-recorded).

Twitch viewers

6602026-08-26 19:15 — 3 viewers2026-08-26 20:34 — 3 viewers2026-08-26 22:34 — 12 viewers2026-08-27 01:34 — 1 viewers2026-08-27 03:34 — 0 viewers2026-08-27 05:34 — 0 viewers2026-08-27 07:33 — 2 viewers2026-08-27 09:33 — 0 viewers2026-08-27 11:34 — 0 viewers2026-08-27 13:34 — 26 viewers2026-08-27 15:34 — 26 viewers2026-08-27 17:34 — 66 viewers2026-08-27 19:34 — 0 viewers2026-08-27 22:34 — 0 viewers2026-08-28 00:34 — 0 viewers2026-08-28 02:34 — 0 viewers2026-08-28 04:34 — 0 viewers2026-08-28 06:34 — 2 viewers2026-08-28 08:34 — 9 viewers2026-08-29 12:35 — 0 viewers2026-08-29 14:34 — 2 viewers2026-08-29 16:34 — 2 viewers2026-08-29 18:34 — 0 viewers2026-08-29 21:34 — 0 viewers2026-08-29 23:34 — 2 viewers2026-08-30 01:34 — 6 viewers2026-08-30 02:34 — 6 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

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

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Similarity via IGDB.

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