Rebel Wolves, the new studio formed by ex-CDPR devs, has fully revealed its debut project, the single-player third-person dark fantasy open-world RPG Blood of Dawnwalker.
Rebel Wolves was formed almost two years ago and the studio confirmed it had a new game in development almost a year ago to the day, but a new four-minute cinematic trailer fully lifted the lid on the project. In it, we see a young man carrying his baby sister through a medieval European town ravaged by plague and bloodthirsty vampires. After being stopped by armed guards who planned to kill his sister, the scene erupts into chaos as vampires attack and kill everyone except the man and his sister, who one vampire is able to heal using its hands.
"I am life. I am death. I am everything in between," the vampire snarls. "I have been watching your little valley. Pestilence. Famine. Killing. Blood spilled carelessly like water. Things will be different now for all of you."
The trailer is largely cinematic, but at the end we get a few brief glimpses of gameplay showing the protagonist fighting a few monsters, including something that looks like a biomechanical spider. Again, it's too brief to really extract anything meaningful from, but it's something.
"The Blood of Dawnwalker is the first chapter of Rebel Wolves’ brand new role-playing saga — a single-player open-world dark fantasy action-RPG with a strong focus on story and narrative," Rebel Wolves says, suggesting the game is being planned as the beginning of a new series.
Founded in 2022, Rebel Wolves is headed up by The Witcher 3 game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who left CDPR in 2021 following accusations of bullying (via Eurogamer), and ex-Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk quest director Mateusz Tomaszkiewic. They're joined by fellow CDPR alums Bartłomiej Gaweł, art director on The Witcher 3 and Blood of Dawnwalker, and Jakub Szamałek, narrative director at Rebel Wolves. The studio's animation director, Tamara Zawada, left in 2024.
The Blood of Dawnwalker puts you in control of Coen, the man in the trailer, who is turned into a Dawnwalker, a human and vampire hybrid.
Tomaszkiewicz and Szamałek shared a few additional details in Dawnwalker's reveal stream. The world features a day/night cycle you'll need to carefully navigate as a Dawnwalker, and you'll also need to make sure you don't get too hungry - or you'll start feeding on your friends. Adding to that sense of urgency, you'll have 30 in-game days and 30 in-game nights to save your family. Thankfully, you can somewhat manage how quickly time moves by completing objectives that move the clock forward.
A full gameplay reveal is planned for Summer 2025.
In the meantime, here are the best RPGs you can (and should) play right now.
