There’s quite a bit to be mentioned concerning the rise and continued recognition of dark-fantasy RPGs. With the fashionable panorama spearheaded partly by video games like Darkish Souls and The Witcher, we’ve seen a wealth of creativity from established and indie studios alike.
That’s the place Insurgent Wolves is available in particularly, having splintered off from CD Projekt RED with the aim of constructing one thing distinctive. This has since been manifested in an all-new sport referred to as The Blood of the Dawnwalker, which is deliberate for launch on current-generation platforms.
Whereas we caught a glimpse of the title earlier this yr, Bandai Namco and Insurgent Wolves just lately put aside a while to offer us a greater take a look at The Blood of the Dawnwalker forward of Gamescom and its launch in 2026.
The Blood of the Dawnwalker is promoting itself as an open-world, fantasy RPG set in a dreary medieval Europe – one which could be very story-focused with the core theme of vampirism at night time and humanity in the course of the day.
It’s set within the yr 1347 AD in a valley positioned someplace within the Carpathian Mountains often known as Vale Sangora. It’s right here a gap cutscene attracts open the curtain, the place a person, quickly to be our principal character, runs away with a sickly little one till he’s surrounded and finally saved by a mysterious group of vampires.
We study that the Plague has been decimating Europe, and on this world, a bunch of vampires have determined to take management of the realm due to it.
The demo then kicks into excessive gear by dropping the lead character, Coen, straight right into a lived-in world with one aim: he should save his household. And that is evident why within the opening we noticed, although there’s been a little bit of a skip to maintain a few of the story contemporary right here.
Whereas Coen has this total aim, it’s not essentially a race in opposition to the clock. The Blood of the Dawnwalker operates in a fashion the place time will transfer ahead at a price relying in your actions and quests taken, and it’ll let you already know when that’s happening earlier than committing to something as time is a really particular useful resource. That is marked by an hourglass image on display screen.
Coen’s first process that we get to see entails infiltrating a cathedral, and the attention-grabbing half about all of that is that the expertise will differ relying on if it’s day or night time. A lot of that is clearly marked with solar or moon icons on the person interface to let you already know if a quest can solely be undertaken throughout their respective time durations.
Beginning out at night time, Coen has to sneak his method in utilizing his vampiric talents and may accomplish that to succeed in hard-to-reach locations and get round locked doorways. For instance, making use of the scaffolding is a intelligent technique to keep away from enemies and provides up a path into the cathedral with out getting caught.
Coen has the flexibility to scan his setting, which is vital to sus out clues and work out the place to go subsequent. After doing a bit little bit of investigation, we’re taken round to point out off some fight, which might be dynamic relying on participant desire.
One of many principal talents Coen can use at night time is his vampiric claws to slash and assault enemies. He may make use of a capability referred to as Voracious Chunk to empty enemies of their blood to replenish his well being.
Coen may battle swiftly utilizing a sword, and that is notable as a result of the group did make changes following some preliminary suggestions from the reveal trailer. Particularly, new digicam choices have been added for each exploration and fight. Need the digicam additional or nearer? It’s as much as you.
This aspect of alternative is prevalent all through The Blood of the Dawnwalker. It’s being touted as a “narrative sandbox” as a result of there’s loads of methods you’ll be able to deal with each story thread.
The flipside of this coin lies within the twin gameplay loop. Whereas Coen can function as a vampire in the course of the night time, in day he’s a human who has completely different abilities and weaknesses. His technique of fight in the course of the day requires a bit extra blocking, and you should utilize stamina to simplify issues by way of the addition of an auto-combo function to maintain the battle flowing.
The Blood of the Dawnwalker includes a ability tree to assist customise Coen, with a number of units of perks relying on if he’s human or vampire. There’s additionally some shared perks that function between each night time and day.
However as an example the true distinction in his humanity, the demo took us again to the cathedral, to the place we had been capable of stroll proper in as an alternative of sneaking round. This implies Coen has the chance to speak to different NPCs right here and achieve entry to quests, work together with dialogue selections, and uncover extra of the story.
We noticed a little bit of a aspect quest right here, following clues on a caretaker utilizing the identical investigation modes as earlier than. One aspect that helps pinpoint the place to look are coloured moths, as they point out one thing is vital, and that feels key with regards to parsing by way of an open world.
Coen may use magic in the course of the day resembling necromancy. As soon as such instance had him compelling a lifeless soul to gather extra info. He may collect what’s referred to as catalysts, which offer additional context throughout these investigations.
Finally Coen makes his method right down to a crypt, and the demo culminates in a boss battle, which is the result of the entire clues gathered from the cathedral to that specific level. What’s attention-grabbing is that this quest may have been accomplished at night time as nicely, however it might in fact change the story.
We’re definitely eager to dig in with the complete sport and see the place all of the completely different different paths go. The builders at Insurgent Wolves have additionally confirmed with us that every part you do in The Blood of the Dawnwalker will in the end have its penalties, so it’ll be attention-grabbing to see simply what number of completely different endings and mixtures there really is, and the way a lot weight the narrative has when the sport launches in 2026.
TechRaptor was invited to a hands-off preview for The Blood of the Dawnwalker by the writer.
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