Rebel Wolves, a team of industry veterans who worked on games like The Witcher 3, is getting ready to release its first game. That alone is enough to raise expectations, especially when that first game turns out to be a dark fantasy RPG about vampires, choices and time running out. A while ago, I was invited to play The Blood of Dawnwalker as one of the first people in the world during a special event in Paris. I was given four hours with the prologue and open world to see if this debut could live up to those expectations. Let’s jump in.
Meet Coen
The Blood of Dawnwalker puts you in the shoes of Coen, a young man whose life changes completely after the arrival of Brencis and his vampire clan in Vale Sangora. His family is in danger, the world around him is already broken by war and disease, and before he really understands what is happening, Coen becomes something in between. During the day, he is still human. At night, he turns into a vampire.
That idea could have been a simple gimmick, but during my four hours with the game, it already felt like the heart of the experience. Coen isn’t some perfect hero who walks into a village and fixes everything. He’s scared, angry, and desperate to save the people he loves, while also trying to understand what he is becoming. That makes the story more personal than just “vampires have taken over the land”, because every decision seems to come back to the same question: how far are you willing to go before you lose yourself?
I also liked that the game doesn’t throw you into this world as a complete stranger. Coen has ties to the people around him, especially his family and Anca, a herbalist who clearly knows more about the world than most. I also liked that Coen already has ties to the world around him. His family matters, Anca clearly isn’t just another NPC, and that made the opening feel more personal to me. I wasn’t just helping people because a quest marker told me to. I actually understood why Coen would care, and that made some of the early choices hit harder.
Prepare for some intense combat
Combat was one of the parts I was most curious about, mostly because The Blood of Dawnwalker doesn’t handle it like a standard action RPG. At first glance, you see Coen with a sword and you think you know what to expect. You lock on, wait for an opening, attack, block, dodge, repeat. But after a couple of fights, it became clear that Rebel Wolves is trying to give combat its own identity. The biggest difference is the directional system. Coen can attack and block in different directions, meaning you actually need to look at how an enemy is moving instead of just smashing the same button until something dies. If an attack comes from one side, you need to react to that side. If you want to put pressure on an enemy yourself, you also decide where your own attack is coming from. It sounds like something that could become clunky very quickly, but during my hands-on, it felt more natural than I expected.
I won’t pretend I mastered it right away. I definitely didn’t. There were moments where I blocked the wrong way, got punished for it, and immediately knew it was my own fault. But that’s also what made the system interesting. Fights weren’t just about timing your dodge correctly; I had to read the enemy a little, stay calm and stop treating every encounter like a button-mashing contest. That took some getting used to, but once it clicked, even smaller fights felt more involved.
What I also liked is that the game doesn’t seem to force everyone into the most precise version of that system. There are more direct options like omni-attacks and omniblocks, which make the combat easier to pick up if you don’t want to think about directions every single second. I can see some players using those right away, especially in the beginning. Personally, I liked having more control over the direction of my attacks and blocks, because it made the fights feel a bit more physical. Messier, sure, but also more satisfying when I got it right. It’s also worth pointing out that the game has a lot of options to make it as pleasant for the player as possible. During my demo, I had lights helping me to see where the attacks will come from instead of reading the posture of my enemies. It’s all optional but it’s great to see that the team wants to make an experience as accessible as possible.
I want you to believe… to believe in things you cannot.
The day and night system also changes how combat feels, and that ties directly into the game’s time mechanic. During the day, I mostly relied on Coen’s sword and the directional attacks and blocks. Those fights felt more controlled, but also more risky when I made a mistake. I had to pay attention to where attacks were coming from, and if I tried to rush things, the game punished me pretty quickly. At night, combat became a lot more aggressive. As vampire Coen, I had access to different abilities, including claws and more brutal attacks, which immediately changed how I approached enemies. I wasn’t suddenly invincible, but I did feel more dangerous. That made the night sections a lot of fun, because I started taking risks I probably wouldn’t take during the day.
The interesting part is that you don’t just switch between those two sides whenever you want without thinking about it. Time matters in The Blood of Dawnwalker, and some actions push the clock forward. That means choosing when to do something can be just as important as how you do it. Do you handle a situation during the day, when Coen feels more human but less dangerous? Or do you wait until night, knowing that his vampire side might make things easier, but that you are also spending time you might need somewhere else? That made the split between human Coen and vampire Coen feel more meaningful to me. Human Coen isn’t just the weaker version you have to deal with until night falls, and vampire Coen isn’t just a power fantasy button. They both seem to have a place in the way you play, but the time system makes you think twice about when you want to use each side. After four hours, I’m very curious to see how much pressure that adds once the full game opens up.
What I do want to make clear is that the game doesn’t punish you for simply exploring the world. Time matters, but it isn’t constantly ticking forward while you walk around, loot, look for secrets or just try to understand the map. That was something I was happy to notice during my hands-on, because otherwise this could have become stressful in the wrong way. Instead, time seems to move forward during specific quests or important actions, and the game makes that clear before you commit to them. So you know when you are about to spend time and when you are still free to explore. That makes a big difference. It means you can still take in the world, search for other paths or prepare yourself without feeling like every second is secretly ruining your chances somewhere else. That balance worked well during the demo. The clock adds pressure when it was needed but it doesn’t stop the open world from feeling like a place you can actually explore.
A world worth testing
And that brings me to the open world itself, because this was probably the part of the demo where I started to experiment the most. Once I realised that simply exploring didn’t push time forward, I started poking around a lot more. The Blood of Dawnwalker has some pretty familiar open-world elements. You can climb lookout towers to discover certain quests, help people in trouble, run into smaller monsters and take on bigger enemies that clearly require a bit more preparation.
So yes, some of it feels traditional, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. During my demo, there seemed to be a decent amount of things to do, and the world itself had enough variation to make me curious. I found myself moving away from the main path more than once, just to see what was hidden nearby or whether I could handle a fight I probably wasn’t fully ready for yet. At the same time, this was also the part of the hands-on that was hardest to judge. A lot of the open world was still blocked off or limited to avoid story spoilers, which makes sense for a preview event, but it also means I didn’t get the most natural first impression of the world. I could see the systems, I could test some of the activities, and I could get a feel for the scale, but I couldn’t fully lose myself in it yet. That’s why I’m still a little cautious about this part. The world has potential, and I like that the time mechanic doesn’t punish you for every small detour, but I need more time with the final game before I can really say how well the open world holds up once everything is unlocked.
Early conclusion:
The Blood of Dawnwalker made a strong first impression. After four hours, I still feel like I only scratched the surface, but I already liked the pressure behind its choices, the difference between human and vampire Coen, and the way time matters without making exploration feel stressful. I’m still cautious about the open world, mostly because the demo had to block off quite a lot to avoid spoilers. But I liked the combat more than I expected, the setting has a lot of potential, and Coen’s situation gives the whole game a strong hook. If Rebel Wolves can bring all of these ideas together in the full game, this could become a dark fantasy RPG worth keeping a very close eye on.