There's a dark new tale of blood and swords on the way.
The Blood of Dawnwalker is a new role-playing game (RPG) being developed by Rebel Wolves and published by Bandai Namco. Rebel Wolves is a studio founded by former CD Projekt RED developers that worked on The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 franchises.
Set in 14th Century Europe, The Blood of Dawnwalker unfolds as the Black Death is stalking the land. In the midst of all the carnage, vampires emerge, bringing other "creatures of the night" with them to to challenge humanity. The player character is a young man named Coen who is turned into a titular Dawnwalker, treading the line between vampire and human. You can check out the cinematic reveal trailer and a small bit of early in-engine alpha footage on YouTube.
A dark world to explore and choices to make
Rebel Wolves describes The Blood of Dawnwalker as the "first chapter" in a new saga. The game is being developed using Unreal Engine 5. Per the developers, players will be able to make choices as befits an RPG, delving further into their vampiric abilities and obtaining allies of the night, or choosing to have Coen stay in the light in a "narrative sandbox."
Back in May 2024, Rebel Wolves founder Konrad Tomaszkiewicz spoke with Bloomberg about how he wanted to make games with a smaller team again, stating at the time that the studio had 90 employees, with no intention of growing to the 1,000+ headcount of many publishers. The team is also committed to avoiding crunch.
“Our main policy in the studio is team first,” Tomaszkiewicz said at the time. “When we’re making decisions here, first of all we’re thinking about what we can do to make the team motivated and happy.”
The Blood of Dawnwalker does not currently have a release date, or even a general release window, but we won't be waiting long to see more, with the developers promising a full gameplay reveal at some point over the summer. Whenever it does arrive, The Blood of Dawnwalker is slated to launch across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5.
This is definitely a game I'll be keeping an eye on. I'm always down for more RPGs, and a vampire-infested Europe is a creepy but cool setting to explore. As a side note, it's interesting to me that both CD Projekt RED and Rebel Wolves (a team born of out of the former's staff) are both using Unreal Engine 5. CD Projekt RED is now working on a number of games, including The Witcher 4, which is meant to be the start of a new trilogy starring Ciri.
