When former Witcher 3 developers announced a new dark fantasy about a cursed half vampire in medieval Europe, it almost certainly demands attention. This project is dubbed The Blood of Dawnwalker, and fans have been treated to a brand new gameplay trailer.
The studio formed by ex-CD Projekt devs, Rebel Wolves will debut with The Blood of Dawnwalker and their new Protegée is called Coen – human by day, vampire by night, the obligatory kingdom ruled by some sort of bloodsucking nobility and the opposing force of human rebellion included. We can already smell the blood-soaked dilemma we’re going to be facing.
There’s a catch 22 however, since the developers at Rebel Wolves like to torture us, apparently. Coen has exactly 30 in game days (and nights) to save his family – or go all in on a brutal path of revenge. The catch in itself isn’t that there’s a timer in the corner of your screen, rather every major decision or quest progression pushes that timer forward, which eliminates two very annoying open world habits in one.
Firstly, the sense of urgency. We can only take Fallout 4 as an example; finding Shaun is your main objective, and it is presented with some form of urgency indeed. So why the hell are we picking mutated flowers, we’re asking? The second advantage is that the world will not politely stand in a corner and wait until you clear icons off the map, which – as good a game the Witcher 3 was – is one its main points of critique.
You’re going to hear comparisons to Geralt’s grant adventure a lot, and the more we see of The Blood of Dawalker, the clearer it becomes, that this game is borrowing some of the CD Projekt DNA – albeit with a creative and decidedly harsher twist, as well as being a bit more constrained than The Witcher 3’s open world.
What else is it then, that this game will undoubtedly do different than CD Projekt’s magnum opus?
The Blood of Dawnwalker Creators Present New Gameplay Walkthrough
Let’s put a little dent into the thought of The Blood of Dawnwalker being The Witcher III – it really isn’t, it appears to be a little more grounded, in terms of its fantasy aspects, at least. The Blood of Dawnwalker is set in the 14th century, in a fictitious part of southeast Europe, which already sets the ground rules for a lot of what happens here.
In this iteration of the big continent, vampire lords have turned everyday life into a horror show, with a big slice of permanent crisis on top.
Humans have to adhere to a blood tax, so you can already tell that this setup is pretty personal – considering Coen is at least part human himself. It feels smaller in scale than the Witcher, but that might be deliberate, you’re not saving a whole continent by yourself.
It’s a narrative sandbox that puts the “R” back into the RPG side of things, and it isn’t as straight a corridor as we previously thought. Open world, dense cities, rural backroads, and not a ton of waypoints marking what could be happening next.
In that sense, we guess the Witcher DNA does seep through, but with a little bit more player-driven exploration attached to it – the sense of discovery appears to be very important to Rebel Wolves. Good.
The Time Mechanic in Blood of Dawnwalker Explained
The biggest hook – at least in the marketing material we’ve seen and analyzed so far – appears to be the time system, where Coen has 30 days and nights total to finish what he started. But don’t fear, this isn’t some Majora’s Mask time limit, since exploring the world is free, but starting or resolving major quests takes precious time.
Before you confirm an action, the game shows how many days it will cost, so you don’t end up doing something you’ll regret.
That turns time into a kind of currency. For example – do you help a village deal with a vampire nest, knowing it will push the main story closer to disaster, or sprint toward the core objective underprepared because you are hoarding days for later?
There is no perfect answer, only tradeoffs that shape your version of Coen, and that is a creative way of creating urgency, without doing away with sidequests and cool stories altogether. Moment to moment gameplay-wise, The Blood of Dawnwalker splits play across day and night.
During the day Coen fights as a grim medieval swordsman with directional blocks, executions, and hex style magic. At night he leans into vampiric abilities like wall running, Shadowstep, and brutal claw and bite attacks for mobility and sustain, both are very cool, and we’d love to see our player character having to decide to lean into one more than the other.
All in all, The Blood of Dawnwalker appears to be a clever mix of what the devs learned from the open world, design choices and overall tonality of The Witcher 3, and their own adjustments, dare we say, creative exploits they’ve always wanted to explore. We can’t wait to step into Coen’s blood-soaked shoes – that much is certain.
When is The Blood of Dawnwalker Coming Out?
The Blood of Dawnwalker release date is slated for 2026, although no specific day has been announced.
It will launch on PC, Playstation 5 and Xbox Series S/X.
