Introduction: The footprint of The Witcher series is enormous in the global gaming community, but it is at its biggest in the role-playing genre. A part of the CD Projekt RED team that worked on the same franchise splintered off some time ago to make a new game development studio. That studio is called Rebel Wolves and it recently showcased its first game – a title called The Blood of the Dawnwalker. As an open-world RPG, it has much excitement, especially due to its interesting setting and a twist on the decision-making system that will be very constricted related to the passing of time. With many novel elements and a substantial sense of quality and ultimately, polish, it seems that The Blood of the Dawnwalker might be one of the crucial RPG games that come out in 2025.
Article: The world’s fascination with the tale of Dracula, set in the ominous Carpathian mountains continues to this day, nearly 130 since the original publication of the Bram Stoker novel. However, underneath this story lie centuries of folklore and myths, mainly rooted in the Slavic traditions of Southeast Europe. Here is where the Rebel Wolves studios found their main inspiration for The Blood of the Dawnwalker, a new sandbox-like open-world RPG. It is set in the 14th century, taking place in a fictional kingdom deep in the region of Carpathia. Here, true history mixes with fiction as feudal lords and vampire beings fight for supremacy, while the Black Death is taking its macabre toll on the powerless population. The development team decided to set their main character precisely there, as Coen, a young man among the downtrodden masses. However, by chance or fate, Coen begins his vampiric transformation, which offers him a range of choices and possibilities, including the possibility of saving his family. This relatively simple premise, along with an interesting way of intertwining the game’s narrative, choice-based actions, and gameplay mechanics that continue to evolve alongside Coen’s vampirism, promises a very interesting game. Bandai Namco also recognized its potential, which is why it will be the publisher of The Blood of Dawnwalker once it comes out sometime in 2025. The origins of the game’s development team, just like their decisions along the way, provide a backdrop to a very unusual and potentially very successful role-playing game.
The Witcher Beginnings
The formation of the Rebel Wolves studio began once a group of CD Projekt RED developers decided to step out of the famous Polish company and create their own team. Among them are several famous names, including Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who is one of the co-founders of Rebel Wolves. Tomaszkiewicz worked on The Wicher 3: Wild Hunt as the game’s director and is now one of the project leaders on The Blood of Dawnwalker. He recently explained that the main inspiration for the new titles lies in classic RPG games, but with a big difference in time urgency. It, as well as the setting, should offer something different for the single-player RPG market.
Realm of Vale Sangora
To ensure the uniqueness of their game, the developers decided to undertake a different process of worldbuilding. The setting of the game is the fictional kingdom of Vale Sangora, located in the Carpathian mountain range. In the 14th century, the kingdom was under pressure from a plague outbreak and the tyrannical feudal masters. However, the balance of power is disturbed when powerful vampires appear, take over, and impose a blood tax on the population of Vale Sangora. In the chaos, the main character is a villager by the name of Coen who is infected by both a vampiric transformation and silver poisoning. These opposing elements in his body provide new powers and possibilities, but also a continued sense of transformation and change, ultimately forcing Coen to make constant choices. Here, the players will be able to decide whether or not to act out their vengeance, try to save Coen’s plague-infected sister, usher his family to safety in exchange for a personal sacrifice, or something completely different.
30-Day Gameplay Cycle
The Rebel Wolves team is calling The Blood of the Dawnwalker a narrative sandbox. This means that in the same RPG, there is no distinction between the main quest and the side quests. Instead, the world is open to the player’s agency and their choices of exploring a particular theme and disregarding others. Here is where the most interesting element of the game lies – the players will get just 30 days to live as Coen and make their choices. Once this period ends, the game ends as well, wherever the players move its narrative. At the same time, there is no indication that the game will be a roguelike title where each playthrough somehow influences the next one. Instead, the Rebel Wolves want players to get immersed in the intrigue and dangers of Vale Sangora again and again, seeing what their choices lead to in each playthrough. Historically, these concepts usually end up disappointing players, as it is incredibly hard to have truly different outcomes for many choices and possibilities. Games tend to offer a wide array of possibilities in open-world titles, but these still generally feed into a small number of predefined results. The Blood of Dawnwalker clearly wants to set itself apart from such titles and the relatively short 30-day cycle should help in that regard.
Dawnwalker Release
Rebel Wolves still have not given out any precise release date for their game, but many believe that it should come out in 2025, likely close to the holiday season at the year’s end. But the fact that it will be published by Bandai Namco Entertainment is very indicative of the game’s potential. It is also being developed inside of Unreal Engine 5, presently the most capable development tool for AAA games. Once published, the game will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, covering the big home gaming platforms. All of this shows that The Blood of the Dawnwalker has a huge budget and that many expect it to become a hit release once it comes out. While it is impossible to determine how good it will be or how well the RPG audience will react to it, the core concept it uses is nonetheless different and interesting. Furthermore, the game is also geared solely towards the single-player market. If nothing else, this shows that the 2024 trend of big games without any multiplayer element, like Black Myth: Wukong and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is continuing to gain strength this year as well.
Author: Ivica Milaric, game designer and assistant professor of game design at the Novi Sada Academy of Arts, Republic of Serbia