The Blood of Dawnwalker is the debut dark fantasy RPG from Rebel Wolves, a studio founded in part by ex-CD Projekt Red developers. That includes Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz and Cyberpunk 2077 quest design director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz. In a press release, the game certainly sounds like it has all the ingredients for something impressive and exciting, but we previously hadn’t seen much of Dawnwalker in action. A new 10-minute deep-dive into the gameplay and some accompanying previews have changed that. So, how is everything shaping up?
Based on the new footage and details we’ve learned, Rebel Wolves’ first game is looking more promising than ever. The big theme is that actions have consequences. Casting you as newly infected vampire Coen, who only has 30 days to save his kin, Dawnwalker plays out across the Vale Sangora and the nearby Carpathian Mountains. There are skill trees, enemy factions, dialogue trees and, of course, side-quests. Certain choices tick time forward and push you closer to the endgame, though players can also rush to confront the main villain, the vampire lord Brencis. We also finally have a release date: September 3 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Here’s what else we learned today:
Blood of Dawnwalker takes 50 to 70 hours to complete
That’s how long some developers have spent trying to beat the game, according to Tomaszkiewicz. It sounds like if you want to rush through the game and not take in the scenery and side-quests, it might be a fair bit briefer. There are, of course, multiple endings depending on the choices you make. Replayability seems encouraged in that regard, though I haven’t seen anyone talk about a new game+ option yet.
Time only moves forward when you choose
This isn’t like a normal open-world game with a constantly shifting day-and-night cycle. Activities in the game that move time forward will have an hourglass icon associated with them so you’ll know exactly how much of that precious resource you’re spending to do one thing over another. It sounds like not everything can be completed in a single-playthrough—there will be some trade-offs—but you also don’t need to worry about the constant anxiety of a countdown like in, say, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.
Yes, there’s a Blink ability
It’s called Shadow Step and, like Dishonored‘s Blink, it lets you reach hard-to-get-to places as well as get out of harm’s way. It’s only available while in vampire form, at which point you can also walk up the sides of walls or down them.
You’ll accidentally eat NPCs if you get too weak
There’s a thing called Blood Hunger that can take over when your health bar gets below a certain point. When that happens, conversations with people can get weird. The dialogue will start to get wobbly and Coen will eventually be faced with the option “given into hunger” which he can’t refuse, consuming the NPC with his black tendrils. Apparently most of the NPCs, including quest givers, can be killed this way (or just with a good old-fashioned sword stab).
Detective mode returns
Ever since Batman: Arkham Asylum popularized pressing a button to reveal hidden clues in a detailed environment, games have been using “detective vision” as a sort of short-hand for a character “solving” a puzzle. So it was with The Witcher 3 and Geralt using his “witcher sense” to find trails in the wilderness, and so it is with Coen using a “focus mode” to find pig footprints in the mud during one of Dawnwalker‘s early quests.
The skill tree is split between daytime and nighttime powers
Witchcraft is for the daytime, vampiric powers are for night, and a third branch for sword fighting is applicable in both. Combat with a blade is directional, meaning you’ll need to hit left, right, up, or down to break through an enemy’s defenses or correctly block them. Some abilities are also locked behind certain types of vampire blood. They can only be unlocked when you kill a vampire of the right type and drink their blood.
There’s a weather system…
…but we still don’t know how it works exactly. That’s apparently something the developers want players to discover for themselves, hinting that there might be some particular quests or secrets driven by rain, fog, and other effects.
Dawnwalker is being developed by a big but not huge team
Rebel Wolves made clear that around 160 people are working on the game. That’s a lot compared to most indie games and even some AA games, but much less than the 1,000-person development teams behind the blockbusters coming out of major publishers.
Some serious PC spec requirements
You’ll need an Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 series to play Dawnwalker on anything but the lowest settings. Running the game at 60fps with 1080p resolution on the high-quality preset will require at 5060 card equivalent or better. And if you want to play on max settings at 60fps in native 4K, you’ll need to spend nearly $4,000 upgrading to an RTX 5090. Thanks OpenAI!
