Blood of Dawnwalker is the first dark fantasy RPG from Rebel Wolves, a studio founded in part by former CD Projekt Red developers. This includes Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz and Cyberpunk 2077 Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, Quest Design Director. From a press release, the game certainly seems to have all the ingredients for something impressive and exciting, but we haven’t seen much of it before. Dawnwalker in action. A new 10 minute deep dive in gameplay and some accompanying previews changed that. So how is it going?
Based on the new images and the details we’ve learned, the first Rebel Wolves game looks more promising than ever. The big theme is that actions have consequences. You play as the newly infected Coen vampire, who has only 30 days to save his loved ones, Dawnwalker takes place in the Sangora Vale and the neighboring Carpathians. There are skill trees, enemy factions, dialogue trees, and of course, side quests. Certain choices advance time and bring you closer to the end of the game, although players can also rush to face 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 50-70 hours to complete That’s how much time some developers spent trying to beat the game, according to Tomaszkiewicz. It seems like if you want to rush through the game and not take in the scenery and side quests, it could be a bit briefer. There are of course multiple endings depending on the choices you make. Replayability seems encouraged in this regard, although I haven’t seen anyone talk about a new game+ option yet.
Time only moves forward when you choose it It doesn’t feel like a normal open-world game with an ever-changing day and night cycle. In-game activities that advance time will have an hourglass icon associated with them so you know exactly how much of this precious resource you’re spending on doing one thing over another. It seems like it can’t all be completed in one playthrough (there will be compromises to make) but you also don’t have to worry about the constant anxiety of a countdown as in, say, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.
Yes, there is a Blink ability It’s called Shadow Step and, like Dishonored’s Blink, it allows you to reach hard-to-reach places and keep you out of danger. He is only available in vampire form, in which case you can also walk on the sides of walls or down them.
You will accidentally eat NPCs if you become too weak There is a thing called Blood Hunger that can take over when your health bar drops below a certain point. When this happens, conversations with people can get weird. The dialogue will start to become shaky and Coen will eventually find himself faced with the “starved” option that he cannot refuse, devouring the NPC with his black tendrils. Apparently most NPCs, including quest-givers, can be killed this way (or just with a good old-fashioned swing of the sword).
Detective mode returns From Batman: Arkham Asylum Popularized by pressing a button to reveal hidden clues in a detailed environment, the games use “detective vision” as a sort of shorthand for a character “solving” a puzzle. So it was with The Witcher 3 and Geralt using his “wizard sense” to find trails in nature, and the same goes for Coen using a “focus mode” to find pig footprints in the mud during one of the Dawnwalkerthe first quests.
The skill tree is split between day and night powers Witchcraft is for the day, vampiric powers are for the night, and a third branch for sword fighting is applicable in both cases. Blade combat is directional, meaning you’ll need to strike left, right, up, or down to break through an enemy’s defenses or properly block them. Certain abilities are also locked behind certain vampire blood types. They can only be unlocked when you kill a vampire of the right type and drink their blood.
There is a weather system… …but we still don’t know how exactly it works. This is apparently something the developers want players to discover for themselves, hinting that there could be particular quests or secrets motivated by rain, fog, and other effects.
Dawnwalker is developed by a large but not a large team Rebel Wolves made it clear that around 160 people were working on the game. That’s a lot compared to most indie games and even some AA games, but far fewer than the 1,000-person development teams behind blockbusters from major publishers.
Some serious PC spec requirements You will 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 a card equivalent to 5060 or better. And if you want to play at max settings at 60fps in native 4K, you’ll need to spend almost $4,000 upgrade to an RTX 5090. Thanks OpenAI!
