The Blood of Dawnwalker is an exciting new vampire RPG from Rebel Wolves - which is made up of former CD-Projekt Red developers. Since it's official reveal back in January, it's fast become one of the most exciting new games headed our way, with an intriguing concept at the heart of the its dark fantasy world. Set in an alternate version of 14-century Europe, The Blood of Dawnwalker will see you take on the role of Coen, a half-human, half-vampire who can choose to lean into either side of his being.
Rebel Wolves was founded by The Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, with the new adventure promising to kickstart a new series filled with vampires and monsters. In fact, it's already showing its Witcher roots, with some exciting details shedding light on the role-play and the way we can shape our story. From everything we've seen so far, it shows a lot of potential, and could have all of the makings of one of the best single-player games. After all, Geralt's journey has long been considered one of the best RPGs of all-time, so we're certainly intrigued to see how this fresh fantasy experience shapes up.
Below, you'll find an overview of everything we know so far about The Blood of Dawnwalker, including all the details we can glean from the trailer, what we can expect in terms of gameplay, all the latest news, and more.
The Blood of Dawnwalker release date speculation
Currently, there is no confirmed release date for The Blood of Dawnwalker. However, given the fact that we recently got a trailer for the game we expect that we'll see it launch no sooner than in 2026.
There have been hints that we'll learn more about the game around summer this year. So once we have more state-of-development updates and news, we'll be able to narrow down a potential release date even further. For now though, we recommend sitting tight and checking out our list of the best horror games to keep you busy in the meantime.
The Blood of Dawnwalker platforms
Once it releases, you'll be able to play The Blood of Dawnwalker on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Unfortunately, this is a heavy-duty game that was developed using Unreal Engine 5, so we don't expect a Nintendo Switch release anytime soon. We also doubt that it will be added to our list of upcoming Switch 2 games in the future, either.
The Blood of Dawnwalker trailer
The first cinematic trailer for The Blood of Dawnwalker is here, and you can watch it for yourself above. In the clip, we see Coen desperately trying to save his little sister, Lunka, who has the plague. The two run into an abandoned ruin, where they become surrounded by the King's men who are aiming to kill Lunka in order to stop the spread of the disease. However, before the little girl dies, a group of vampires suddenly descend on the army like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
The trailer gives us our first real look at the vampire Brencis, who takes up the fallen king's crown and gives Lunka his blood after Coen begs him to save her. Don't let the child-saving antics fool you, though: Brencis is by no means a good guy.
"I've been watching your little valley. Pestilence, famine, killing, and blood spilled carelessly like water. Things will be different now for all of you." he says after destroying the crown and letting his undead friends literally tear a human limb from limb in front of the siblings. His words are pretty ominous if you ask us, and we imagine that nothing good can come from waking the ancient vampire's wrath.
The Blood of Dawnwalker story and setting
The Blood of Dawnwalker is set in AD 1347 in a fictional kingdom called Vale Sangora that's located "somewhere in the Carpathians" (aka Central to Southeastern Europe). In this world, darkness has spread as humans face a plague followed by the imposing force of the ancient vampire Brencis - who forces the human population into a life of servitude and blood taxes.
We follow a young man named Coen, who ends up with the vampiric curse. However, Coen isn't a full-blown creature of the night just yet. He is still half-human, meaning that he is a Dawnwalker: a being who can still navigate both the night and day. However, he'll need all the supernatural abilities now afforded to him as he races against the clock to try and save his family in only 30 days and 30 nights.
While we don't know the full story of Blood of Dawnwalker just yet, we assume there will be more political upheaval and social dynamics to explore, given Tomaszkiewicz's work on The Witcher 3. We also know that Brencis will have a massive part to play in the story as he is set to be the game's main antagonist.
From the game's trailer we also know that Coen's actions will largely revolve around his bond with his sick sister named Lunka. The official Dawnwalker Twitter account has also been gradually posting characters' backstories for all of us to explore. For instance, we recently learned about the origin of an ancient Greek vampire who appeared in the cinematic trailer called Xanthe.
"She was a priestess, once, on a remote Greek island, the name of which she has since forgotten," the post reads. The account also shared that Brencis was born during the Roman Empire, and we discovered that the other vampires in the trailer are named Bakir and Ambrus.
Born in the Roman Empire under the name Caeso Burrienus Laurentius, AD 131, to a noble family who owned massive latifundia, Brencis was destined for greatness.He joined the rank of Senators and quickly rose to the top of Roman officialdom, with ambitions to become the next… pic.twitter.com/rA2Uvvfu0UJanuary 16, 2025
We expect more character and lore insights in the future as the account is pretty active on social media. It's all very exciting and honestly, we can't wait for more story reveals to come our way later on in the year. Watch this space!
The Blood of Dawnwalker gameplay
Blood of Dawnwalker is a single-player open-world game that is also marketed as the first chapter in a "new saga" from Konrad Tomaszkiewicz (one of the directors of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt). The upcoming game will be a story-focused RPG with multiple endings. However, we are pretty light on in-depth gameplay information at the moment, folks.
While we don't know all the gameplay details about Blood of Dawnwalker, we do know that time is a massive mechanic in the upcoming game. In fact, to complete the main objective of Dawnwalker, you only have 30 days and 30 nights to save your family.
Now, if you were worried that a time constraint would make you miss anything on your first playthrough, don't worry: exploring doesn't tick the clock forward. Instead, completing quests will move time along.
However, there is some urgency with these said quests so you can't completely relax either. One feature that will appear in Blood of Dawnwalker is a "limited time" quest system.
"In short - the player has limited time to complete the main goal - exploring the world doesn't move the time forward, but every quest does. It plays a huge role in our narrative setup, and we'll be expanding on what it means later on," explained Rebel Wolves senior PR manager Mateusz Greiner.
Greiner also assured fans that when choosing what to do in the game so you can plan your time wisely, "it will always be clearly telegraphed to the player if an activity moves time forward (and by how much) - players will have control over it."
For those wondering about the 'time' mechanic in The Blood of Dawnwalker from the reveal this week.The studio has since clarified more detail:▪️You have 30 days and 30 nights in the game to save your family (main objective)▪️There is no "hard time limit" and you aren't… pic.twitter.com/rrlOgQ1Aw4January 15, 2025
In terms of other gameplay features in The Blood of Dawnwalker trailer, we saw Coen sliding down building sides, grabbing a sword to swing at some enemies, and using vampiric powers to turn into a cloud of black smoke in order to leap towards a nearby target.
During the game's announcement, we also learned that Coen will have different skills, abilities, and story outcomes depending on the time of day. We'll keep you posted as more news heads our way.
Can you pre-order The Blood of Dawnwalker?
There are currently no pre-orders for The Blood of Dawnwalker live (heart-breaking, we know). This fact won't change for some time as well, given that we don't even have a release window for the game yet.
If you are dying to play something right now, you can check out our guide of the best open-world games for 2025. Otherwise, we'll have to be patient and keep our wallets at the ready for Coen's big vampire-filled day out.
For more future releases, head over to our guides on all the upcoming PS5 games, upcoming Xbox Series X games, and new PC games.
