Led by The Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, fledgling studio Rebel Wolves is comprised of various CD Projekt Red alumni and early looks at the team’s vampire-focused action RPG, The Blood of Dawnwalker, promise that the team is putting their experience to good use. That said, I’ve become wary and maybe even a little cynical about new projects “From the creators of that hit game you loved a few years back.” So, despite its awesome cinematic reveal, I decided to stay cautiously optimistic about this toothy new IP.
There was only ever going to be one way for me to decide whether to let excitement and anticipation take over, and that’s by playing the game. Luckily enough, I was recently invited to Bandai Namco’s office to go hands-on with The Blood of Dawnwalker. After spending four hours fangin’ around in its open world choosing where to spend my precious time, I’m left feeling like a fool for ever having doubted this team’s debut title, because The Blood of Dawnwalker is absolutely fangtastic…ok the vampire puns are getting a little long in the tooth…
Protagonist Coen is a young adult living a normal, modest life with his parents and siblings in small town nestled in the Carpathians. It’s the mid-1300s, so a modest life involves backbreaking work and tithes paid to an uncaring oligarch, but the scenery is beautiful and at least everyone has their health. Oh, hold on, Coen’s sister has the bubonic plague and is marked for extermination. It is the 1300s after all.
Luckily for Coen and his township, the ever-present threat of the plague is driven away when a cabal of vampires arrives, led by the enigmatic Brencis. But in this morally grey landscape, this comes at a cost. Overthrowing the previous leadership, Brencis and his carnivorous crew now pacify the area through fear, demanding a weekly blood sacrifice and generally treating the denizens as cattle.
This world building is excellently laid out during the lengthy but engaging tutorial, where I lead Coen through a typical day in the life of a villager oppressed by a supernatural overlord. It’s a unique and intriguing take on the evil vampire trope, mixing in some ambiguity to the tried-and-true ‘pointy tooth man bad’ approach.
Don’t get me wrong, though, Brencis is a nasty piece of work. Sure, he saves your sister by way of a gross blood transfusion, but he also commits some other spoilery acts before whisking your family away to be kept in a dungeon. He also leaves Coen with a parting gift: vampirism.
Coen escapes a confrontation with Brencis, having been transformed into a creature of the night. Partially, at least. Living up to the game’s title, Coen becomes a Dawnwalker. Human as the rest of us while the sun is up, Coen morphs into a vampiric menace at night, with both sides of him offering up different combat styles, abilities, social interactions, and traversal skills.
Whether wielding a sword or going ballistic with sharpened claws, Blood of Dawnwalker’s directional combat is thrilling. Not only can Coen choose to attack from the four cardinal directions by flicking the right stick, but the same method is used for defending. While you can just hold block and negate incoming damage, you’ll lose a portion of your limited stamina. Matching the direction of the attack, however, will deflect the blow without eating up the precious resource.
The rhythm was a bit tricky to get a handle on initially, but once I found a groove, I was carving through lackies like butter. Blocking and parrying feel earned, not just because you can tap a button quickly, but because you were paying attention to every aspect of the encounter. Matching the direction just before impact will activate a parry, as well, giving you even more reason to take the risk.
During the day, Coen can employ the use of magic, both in and out of combat. Boiling blood to cause damage and create an opening is great, but so is temporarily resurrecting a corpse for a quick chat. Of course, under the light of the moon, Coen’s newfound vampire abilities kick in. Teleporting short distances, defying gravity to walk up walls and using your claws to slide back down them and feasting on foes to regain health were actions I couldn’t use enough during my short time with the game. And there are more abilities I spotted in the skill tree that I didn’t get to use, with the most appealing being transforming into a wolf. Sign me up.
Day moving into night doesn’t come with the flick of a switch or the press of a button, either. You’re given 30 days to rescue your family, but how you spend that time is completely up to you. Each mission, interaction, and learned skill has a time penalty attached to it, forcing you to constantly make decisions that will impact your story.
An early example comes during the tutorial, where you’re tasked with fetching medicine for your ill mother. Simple enough, right? Well, it would be, but your siblings are off to do a spot of fishing, and the roads haven’t been overly safe lately, and they could do with an escort. Moreover, the village healer needs you to visit her to continue your Latin lessons. Sure, you might be able to fit everything in, but what if one decision spirals into another and you’re left with no time to retrieve the medicine? This is but one dilemma I was faced with during my time, but I was met with many more, all with potentially major ramifications attached. There’s a fine balance that needs to be met with this system, as to challenge yet not punish players, and early indications show that Rebel Wolves may have found the equation.
I’m certain to be tearing my hair out once I’ve got the full game in hand, because deciding who to help or what quest to go on will be excruciating, and for more than one reason. Situations I found myself in led to leech farms filled with peasants wading through bogs, disputes with locals surrounding the theft of a banner, and a bloke hiding in a barrel with illusions of grandeur that would’ve ended in a bloody mess were it not for my intervention.
The sword swinging and blood sucking in these scenarios were undoubtedly excellent, but it was the writing of the characters and storylines that truly caught my attention. The best example came from a seemingly innocuous argument I got into with the town bully. A verbal spat that could’ve gone one of many ways resulted in his drunk father showing up to apologise to me and promise his son a hiding. I decided to sympathise with the misguided youth, advising mercy, but the abusive elder took that as an insult, and a fistfight ensued. After I reluctantly handed the jerk his own arse, I spoke with the boy again to apologise for the entire altercation, but he lamented that my actions would only bring him more pain.
For a simple, throwaway interaction that could’ve easily ended in a quick biff with a fellow youth, it had a hefty hidden depth that I wasn’t ready for. And this isn’t an outlier from what I could tell, as I had no fewer than half a dozen side activities unfold in similar ways.
That plays into the ethos behind The Blood of Dawnwalker, from what I can ascertain. The devs I spoke to at the preview event were adamant that there were no main quests or side quests, but stories you can tell that create a wider tapestry. As with the time mechanic, this is a huge feat, and we won’t know if it lands across a 30–40-hour playthrough, but my time spent in the world gave me confidence that Rebel Wolves have pulled it off.
The best previews are the ones that you come away from wanting to play more. After four hours with The Blood of Dawnwalker, I don’t just want to play more; I’m desperate to. I spent so much time gushing about the well-implemented time mechanics, engaging direction combat, interesting abilities, and well-written dialogue and story beats that I didn’t mention the beauty of the open world or the familiar yet rousing soundtrack. All this is to say that I’m incredibly impressed with The Blood of Dawnwalker, so much so that it’s without question my most anticipated game for the remainder of 2026.
The Blood of Dawnwalker releases on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on September 3.
Previewed at an event hosted by Bandai Namco.
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