If you’ve played much than a fewer role-playing games, you’ll cognize however your hero's travel typically plays out. In the prologue, a unspeakable happening volition hap – an lawsuit that demands you determination rapidly to forestall an apocalypse oregon decision an all-encompassing evil. In the pursuing hours, you’ll walk 90% of your clip wholly ignoring that impending threat, alternatively helping randomers you met successful the pub and collecting loot from dungeons. That’s okay, though, due to the fact that the large atrocious volition ever hold for you. The satellite perpetually teeters connected the brink of extinction until you’re acceptable to hole it.
Not truthful successful The Blood of Dawnwalker, the archetypal RPG from Rebel Wolves, a caller workplace founded by erstwhile CD Projekt Red staff. Its run puts you connected a clock: you person 30 days and 30 nights to prevention your household from evil vampires.
That hold-on-while-I-do-a-thousand-side-quests meme “was decidedly 1 of the reasons” for this absorbing approach, originative manager Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz says with a smile. “I wouldn't accidental it was the sole reason, but I would accidental this was decidedly a starting constituent for a conversation.”
To decently recognize that clip unit system, it’s champion to commencement with however The Blood of Dawnwalker’s run is structured. Dubbed a “narrative sandbox,” it doesn’t travel a linear series of events. There’s nary quest one, quest two, quest 3 and truthful on.
“After the prologue, you tin spell straight to the castle. You could effort to rescue your household immediately,” explains Tomaszkiewicz. “There's a assortment of quests you tin enactment in. You tin disregard them, oregon you tin bash them. There are a batch of activities that are straight targeted against [main villain] Brencis that volition weaken him, for example, and marque the onslaught easier. But astatine immoderate constituent you tin decide, ‘Okay, I've got enough, I'm going to the castle, I'm going to bash it.’”
If The Blood of Dawnwalker was a book, then, you’d work the archetypal section and past would beryllium escaped to skip straight to the end. As for the optional chapters betwixt those 2 points, you tin work them successful immoderate order… but you’ll request to find the pages first. “You are not railroaded into these plotlines,” Tomaszkiewicz reveals. “You person to find them [in the world] connected your own. We bash permission breadcrumbs of course, but we privation to marque definite that it doesn't consciousness similar ‘These are the 3 plotlines, bash them and past spell there,’ right? We wanted to heighten the feeling of exploration and uncovering these stories successful the world.”
That brings america backmost to the clip system. You person 30 days and 30 nights to research Vale Sangora, a 14th-century kingdom nestled successful the Carpathian Mountains, and undertake arsenic galore (or arsenic few) of those plotlines arsenic you want. That clip constituent evolved retired of Dawnwalker’s protagonist, Coen. A antheral suffering from some metallic poisoning and a vampiric curse, helium lives arsenic a mortal during the time and becomes a blood-sucker astatine night. “The clip transition was benignant of cardinal to the character,” Tomaszkiewicz notes, particularly since your vampiric abilities let for a precise different, much supernatural playstyle aft dark.
The Blood of Dawnwalker - Gamescom 2025 Screenshots
A Clock That Never Ticks
Perhaps the astir important happening to cognize is that determination is nary real-time ticking timepiece successful The Blood of Dawnwalker. The minutes bash not commencement counting down from the infinitesimal you commencement a caller game. This is not Majora’s Mask oregon Outer Wilds. “We were reasoning that if clip would travel naturally, it mightiness beryllium rather unpleasant. The playstyle would alteration connected the spell [from quality to vampire and backmost to human] perpetually without your input,” explains Tomaszkiewicz. “So that's wherever the clip arsenic a assets thought came in.”
It’s champion to deliberation of clip successful The Blood of Dawnwalker arsenic a currency alternatively than a stopwatch. A bar, divided into 8 sections and displayed successful the upper-right of the screen, represents your regular allowance of that currency. Performing important actions marked with an hourglass icon, specified arsenic completing objectives oregon engaging successful definite conversations, volition “spend” a conception of the bar. Similar to Deathloop, then, simply exploring oregon completing lower-level tasks volition not advancement time. Theoretically, you could enactment successful the noon play of the seventh time for dozens of in-game hours, provided you don’t bash thing marked with that hourglass symbol.
While Rebel Wolves is precise excited astir the mode clip has shaped The Blood of Dawnwalker’s choices and quest plan (of which you tin larn much astir successful our caller preview), Tomaszkiewicz is alert that galore radical volition beryllium skeptical of the system. “I cognize determination are a batch of players that are acrophobic of missing out, truthful we decidedly tried to not chopped disconnected excessively overmuch content,” helium explains. “We are aiming, astatine slightest successful a normal, mean playthrough, for you to beryllium capable to bash 80% of the content.”
You whitethorn person a clip bounds to prevention your family, but determination is nary clip bounds to implicit the game.
Rebel Wolves has twisted temporal rules to present connected that goal, peculiarly erstwhile it comes to however time-sensitive events are handled. For example, 1 storyline involves a burning house, but the flames volition blaze indefinitely until you really observe the building. Only past volition you request to enactment earlier you walk excessively galore sections of the clip bar. There’s nary accidental of you turning up 1 time to find a location you ne'er knew adjacent existed is present a heap of rubble and ash.
Of course, careless of however quests and clip are handled, there’s ever that looming pressure: 30 days and 30 nights to prevention your family. But there’s unwritten nuance successful that deadline. “Don't deliberation astir it arsenic a crippled implicit thing,” Tomaszkiewicz hints. “It's much similar a prime and effect thing.”
That’s the captious takeaway: you whitethorn person a clip bounds to prevention your family, but determination is no clip bounds to implicit the game. You tin proceed to play indefinitely aft that point. And who is to accidental that redeeming your household volition adjacent beryllium the astir important portion of your story? The Blood of Dawnwalker’s Steam leafage states: “Embark connected the quest to prevention your family, oregon curse revenge connected your sire and destruct everyone lasting successful your way.” Perhaps that communicative of revenge volition supply an alternate travel for the main campaign? I inquire Tomaszkiewicz to elaborate, but helium refuses. That Steam statement is already much than enough, helium says.
Control Your Dark Urge
It’s casual to spot time, adjacent erstwhile it lone moves during circumstantial actions, similar soil slipping done your fingers. As thing you lose. But it’s important to retrieve that progressing clip brings you person to 1 of The Blood of Dawnwalker’s astir breathtaking features: Coen becomes a vampire astatine night. When the satellite rises, you unlock the quality to locomotion up walls and on ceilings, and to teleport to rooftops and out-of-reach balconies. Such skills unlock a assortment of opportunities, not to notation a stealthier play style. And so, if you want, you tin skip the days and play lone during the night. It’s a “totally viable mode to play,” Tomaszkiewicz confirms, albeit with a informing that ignoring the time besides means missing quests lone disposable during the waking hours.
A vampire’s supernatural spot and skills travel astatine a price, though, and it’s 1 we each know: gulping down immense quantities of blood. You’ll request to fulfill Coen’s hunger regularly, and the lone genuinely gratifying repast is recovered successful the cervix of a human. You tin opt to disregard that hunger, oregon feast connected overmuch less-satiating animals, but determination are consequences to specified a lifestyle.
“If you starve Coen, if you don't provender him enough, and if you spell into important conversations, helium tin suffer power and conscionable termination disconnected important NPCs,” Tomaszkiewicz reveals.
Rebel Wolves isn’t unsocial successful creating a crippled successful which you tin termination important characters, but it’s doing truthful successful its ain way. You can’t conscionable stride up to idiosyncratic and chopped them down with your sword, for lawsuit – it’s ever to bash with your vampiric urges. But you bash person a choice. “You tin determine to springiness into your vampiric quality whenever it comes knocking,” Tomaszkiewicz explains, describing it arsenic “the whispers of your acheronian nature.” But that’s lone imaginable if Coen is simply hungry. If you starve him, past each speech is simply a rotation of the dice. The hunger could prehend control, and you’ll person nary enactment but to ticker him chow down.
If you starve Coen, helium tin suffer power and conscionable termination disconnected important NPCs.
This strategy is imaginable acknowledgment to that aforementioned “narrative sandbox” run structure. “In a crippled that has much of a strict halfway narrative, you couldn't termination disconnected a quality that is pivotal to the story, right? Because the communicative would autumn apart,” notes Tomaszkiewicz. Since each quests successful The Blood of Dawnwalker (aside from the archetypal and last) are fundamentally optional, it means anyone tin beryllium killed without derailing the story. Instead, those deaths become the story. You tin punish characters you hate, oregon beryllium caught off-guard by astonishment slaughter.
This bloodlust is portion of a wider acceptable of overlapping systems designed to marque the kingdom of Vale Sangora consciousness alive. NPCs person routines, and they’ll rise the alarm if they spot you stealing oregon feeding connected their neighbours. Rival factions volition brawl each different successful the streets. And the evil Brencis watches you from afar.
“As you summation much notoriety successful the valley, arsenic you bash these acts against Brencis, helium won’t enactment passive,” Tomaszkiewicz reveals. “He volition enact these edicts that volition hamper your progression. So helium mightiness nonstop retired much soldiers into the streets, oregon patrolling the roads, oregon enforce a curfew. So present it's much hard to provender astatine night.”
Notoriety initially sounds similar GTA’s wanted level, oregon the escalating effect of Metal Gear Solid’s guards. But it’s really much analyzable than a elemental trouble spike. “Sometimes it tin really beryllium a boon,” Tomaszkiewicz explains. “It's not conscionable Brencis and his soldiers [who respond to your notoriety,] it's besides the radical successful the valley. They volition admit you and beryllium acrophobic of you. So successful immoderate quest situations it really mightiness beryllium helpful. There are immoderate factions that combat against Brencis, they don't similar him. So gathering up notoriety is really a bully mode to summation a bully lasting with them.”
The End and Beyond
The communicative sandbox attack means Rebel Wolves has had to wage adjacent attraction to however the communicative ends. The quality to skip implicit each large quest, oregon termination disconnected important characters, means each subordinate volition deed the finale with antithetic levels of knowledge. Some whitethorn not adjacent cognize what a Dawnwalker is, portion others volition person recovered solutions to each the large problems. And truthful erstwhile I inquire however galore endings the communicative has, Tomaszkiewicz doesn’t person an casual answer.
“This is simply a precise analyzable web of connections,” helium says. “I tin archer you the decorator moving connected the endings is… let's accidental the meme of [It’s Always Sunny successful Philadelphia’s Charlie Day] with the reddish tape. That's him basically. It is simply a batch of fun, but it's a batch to support way of.”
That’s not the lone happening the communicative squad needs to consider, either. The Steam leafage claims that this task is “the opening of a brand-new saga built with emotion for the role-playing genre,” and truthful The Blood of Dawnwalker is conscionable section one. The Rebel Wolves squad whitethorn beryllium gathering a game, but they are besides gathering an full beingness that they program to research successful consequent games.
“We person ideas for the overarching communicative of Coen,” reveals Tomaszkiewicz. He says sequels are, of course, not guaranteed, but the squad has ideas of wherever to spell should this archetypal crippled beryllium a success.
“There is overmuch much successful the IP than conscionable vampires, let's say,” helium teases. “There is this full hidden satellite that we are not exploring connected intent successful this archetypal game. We privation to permission a batch of substance for the sequels and truthful on. But we bash permission breadcrumbs and hint astatine these things. So yeah, we person a wide thought of wherever we privation to instrumentality Coen.”
Such sequels and grander saga ambitions are beyond Rebel Wolves’ grasp for now, conscionable arsenic The Blood of Dawnwalker is beyond our ain – astatine this year’s Gamescom, we were lone capable to ticker a objection alternatively than spell hands-on ourselves. And arsenic breathtaking and promising arsenic that demo was, it’ll instrumentality first-hand acquisition of the communicative sandbox to genuinely archer if the studio’s bold attack to RPG plan has paid off. But conscionable arsenic Coen thirsts for the humor of mortals, I hunger to sensation much of this fascinating, risk-taking Slavic fantasy.
Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.