Here be your first moving-picture look at The Blood of Dawnwalker, the dark fantasy RPG in the works at Rebel Wolves – the studio founded by a bunch of former The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 devs. As hinted at a couple of times over previous years, when it was known simply as Dawnwalker, you’ll be playing as a vampire, employing various spooky powers to fight militiamen (and, it seems, at least one giant mechanical spider-thing) amidst a deadly plague outbreak.
Unsurprisingly, in retrospect, the trailer also has big The Witcher vibes. The stringy orchestral music? The dramatic monologues? The horrible things happening to armoured grunts? This thing’s really playing the Polish fantasy hits.
"You play as Coen, a young man turned into a Dawnwalker, forever treading the line between the world of day and the realm of night", so says the trailer blurb. "Use your skills and combine vampiric strength with human resolve as you take on a quest to save the ones you love. Face your foes – be they human, monster, or the ticking clock itself. But remember – the real evil may bask in the sun's light, and the most loyal of allies could lurk under the cover of night."
Given that some of the air-quotes "gameplay" glimpsed at the end takes place in daylight, I’m interested to see how that fun-hating bastard The Sun affects your vampiric form. You obviously don’t crumble to ash at the slightest glimmer of UV light, but maybe your smoke-transmogrifying, magically head-exploding powers don’t work outside the night. Which would be a pretty big advantage loss, given that the vamps here have an enviable range of abilities, up to and including curing lethal illnesses by touch. I had a cold for literally all of December so hell, I’d be happy with just that one, let alone all the superhuman fighty stuff.
Rebel Wolves have also said that The Blood of Dawnwalker is the first entry in a "saga", which is an ambitious framing for an infant studio, although if they’re dead set on making a spiritual
PC
Open world
Fantasy
Story Rich
RPG: Action