There’s an sick wind howling by means of the valley — and no, it is not simply the plague ravaging 14th-century Japanese Europe. A household of vampires has taken over the quiet stretch between the Carpathian Mountains that you just name dwelling, they usually’ve made you certainly one of their gifted thralls. Now it is as much as you, a peasant given the powers of the blood-draining undead, to save lots of your loved ones, and maybe the valley itself.
At a preview occasion in Los Angeles, California, I bought an early hands-off take a look at Blood of the Dawnwalker, the upcoming motion RPG due out in 2026 from Polish studio Insurgent Wolves and revealed by Bandai Namco. Whereas I did not play the sport, I watched a prolonged presentation proven to a gaggle of media members as a developer performed a reside construct, strolling us by means of the assorted cycles and mechanics that gamers will navigate of their quest to save lots of the valley.
However in dialog with two of the sport’s builders, I heard that Blood of the Dawnwalker has an unusual function — one which’s maybe finest identified from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. From the start of the sport, you’ll be able to march as much as the sport’s finish boss, the vampire Francis, and attempt to defeat them.
“We’ve this narrative sandbox and our purpose right here is to inform the gamers, alright, you are out of the prologue — you do you. If you wish to go and storm Brencis’ Fort proper right here proper now, go,” mentioned Piotr Kucharski, author at Insurgent Wolves. “In actual fact, we invite it, proper? We wish to see these individuals on YouTube.”
That prologue units the stage for the sport: Protagonist Coen’s sister is contaminated with the Black Plague. She’s practically killed by spiritual zealots however for the well timed intervention of Brencis’ coven of vampires, who flip her into certainly one of them. Their try to show Coen fails, turning him into an empowered half-vampire. He has 30 days to save lots of his household — however gamers can go about saving them in any approach they select. Every main motion takes treasured time, however gamers can select to progress as they need. This implies it is potential to overlook a ton of occasions and quests within the recreation.
Play by day or night time — the selection is yours
The demo began on the gameplay overview, embedded above, however prolonged a lot additional. The sport’s builders walked us by means of a fork within the street in a quest for a magic sword. By day, as a mere human, Coen labored his approach by means of church paperwork by looking down a wayward caretaker who become a monster in a quarantined almshouse. He lastly bought entry to a e-book within the church library, which recognized which sigil to look out for within the graveyard. The sword, it seems, was sequestered in a tomb with its bearer.
Daytime exercise can contain swordplay, together with use of magic-like hexes used out and in of fight, nevertheless it’s largely geared towards investigation. You will discuss (together with to the lifeless, because of a useful Compel Soul hex), learn books and get solutions. However, as with nighttime, any extended exercise like a prolonged dialog (indicated on the display with a particular icon, so gamers will not be stunned) might take a phase of time, ticking the clock nearer to Coen’s end-of-month deadline.
On the midway level of the demo, the developer went again to point out how issues could possibly be completed otherwise at night time, utilizing Coen’s vampiric powers to shadowstep throughout rooftops and stroll up partitions — making it simple to sneak into that library to search out the precise e-book. However guards patrolling the graveyard must be handled to unearth the tomb, giving the developer the prospect to point out Coen’s undead combating capabilities (together with goring with claws and draining blood). Descending into the tomb, we discovered the sword, nevertheless it was nonetheless held by an undead knight imprisoned within the partitions — a Dawnwalker like us gone mad by an prolonged lifetime of starvation and hunger.
Killing the knight gave us the vaunted sword, which after reforging, can be a strong weapon when Coen finally challenges Brencis. However that quest is non-compulsory, that means some gamers won’t ever discover it. There are problems to picking whether or not to do some quests in the course of the day and night time, too — as an example, it is likely to be simpler to sneak round at night time, however that Dawnwalker knight can be tougher to kill along with his personal nocturnal vampiric powers.
So, technically, gamers can select to play solely in the course of the day or solely at night time in the event that they like one half of Coen’s skills higher than the opposite. However they’d be lacking out. Whereas some quests have each day and night time layers, others can solely be accessed in daylight or after the solar falls, mentioned Rafał Jankowski, lead quest designer at Insurgent Wolves.
“Some quests require Coen to talk to some corpses and equally, sure locations can solely be reached with planeshift or shadowstep,” Jankowski mentioned.
Splitting real-time fight with motion RPG mechanics
The slice of fight we noticed in the course of the demo likewise break up between day and night time methods. However many of the combating will probably be completed with a longsword, counting on rhythmically alternating between protection and offense. When enemies come at you swinging their very own blades, directional indicators will pop up, requiring you to dam in one of many 4 cardinal instructions earlier than counterattacking your self.
When Insurgent Wolves revealed Blood of the Dawnwalker’s fight in gameplay reveal movies, followers within the feedback critiqued the potential problem of predicting instructions to dam. So the studio took that as suggestions and got here up with an answer so as to add one other omnidirectional blocking capacity, however which might drain Coen’s stamina in change. Likewise, when viewers complained the digital camera adopted the participant too intently, builders added a zoomed-out possibility.
“I do imagine that we’re nonetheless on the stage of improvement when it is invaluable to get individuals concerned extra within the manufacturing, to listen to their opinions on the challenge. We’ll preserve our ear near the bottom,” Jankowski mentioned.
In any other case, Blood of the Dawnwalker follows some anticipated motion RPG standbys, with equippable weapons and armor, therapeutic objects and upgradeable expertise. The sport has a trio of talent bushes, break up between daytime-only, nighttime-only and shared skills.
The affect of Warhammer and The Witcher
Set within the Carpathian Mountains that stretch from modern-day Czech Republic to Romania and in the course of the 14th century, with loads of period-accurate vogue and structure, Insurgent Wolves’ recreation seemingly vibes with the extra reasonable Kingdom Come: Deliverance (set in modern-day Czech Republic). However an even bigger inspiration, the builders informed me, is Warhammer, the darkish fantasy tabletop recreation about warring armies of males, elves, dwarves and monstrous creatures.
“I like the concept of a society, a medieval society that has a metropolis, a thriving group however there’s additionally this exterior hazard. You will have Chaos, you may have Skavens, you may have every kind of creatures, Orcs and so forth,” Kucharski mentioned. “Right here [in Blood of the Dawnwalker], we have now a little bit of a unique state of affairs, as a result of all these creatures come out into the sunshine they usually say, OK, we’re going to rule you.”
With its corruption of Christian church buildings into incorporating seeming blood rituals as a vampiric contact, Blood of the Dawnwalker certain takes cues from Warhammer’s darkish medieval vibe. However Kucharski additionally talked about the tabletop RPG Vampire: The Masquerade (in its medieval variant) as one other inspiration, in addition to the Dragon Age sequence for its consequence of decisions and system of magic.
However with its third-person sword-and-magic gameplay, supernatural monsters and vaguely Slavic setting, Blood of the Dawnwalker jogged my memory much more of one other fashionable recreation from a Polish studio: The Witcher 3.
It is a comparability that the builders have been getting lots. Jankowski is fast to level out the completely different natures of each video games’ protagonists, particularly with Coen’s day-and-night cycles of human and vampiric capacity. However extra importantly, Kucharski famous how a lot historical past Geralt already has within the video games, sourced from the favored sequence of Witcher novels — he is the Butcher of Blavikan along with his personal repute, whereas Coen is just a few man.
After all, Coen will construct his repute as the sport progresses in its zero-to-hero narrative, Kucharski mentioned. And maybe there’s extra to his saga after Blood of the Dawnwalker ends, too — however the builders have been coy about what plans they’d coming for Coen.
“We hope that we’ll see another adventures going perhaps sooner or later,” Kucharski mentioned. “Now we’re specializing in the primary one — simply to get it proper.”
