Beneath some very Witcher 3-like strings and vocals, the former CDPR devs at Rebel Wolves showed off their new game—The Blood of Dawnwalker—as part of the general Keighley-flavoured celebrations at this year's Summer Game Fest Xbox Showcase.
A gruff protagonist informs us that the Dawnwalker world's vamps' whole deal is transforming human society into "mindless, docile cattle." Just a 24/7 banquet for the vamps to feast on as they please. Fortunately, our protag is built different—rather than trying to turn him into a cut of prime beef, the vampires tried to turn him into one of them. But, whoops! He "became something else instead: their worst nightmare."
Which means he got access to a suite of sick parkour abilities and a Dishonored-style blink as a "Dawnwalker," taking on the vamps as he struggles to unravel the mystery of his creation and that whole world-spanning conspiracy thing. The trailer consists of scenes of our main guy putting his unnatural talents to good use: flitting across rooftops in puffs of shadow, taking on goons in rapid and familiar combat, narrating ominously about these goddamn vampires. That kind of thing.
Look, it really sounds like Blade. You can't make your main guy some kind of vampire-gone-wrong called the Dawnwalker and not expect Blade comparisons.
I'm hoping Rebel Wolves pulls it off, but I gotta admit the whole thing kind of looks like a mish-mash of other, more familiar properties. It's Blade's plot plus The Witcher 3's setting and vibe: medieval villages, third-person head-chopping sword action, great but now-familiar music. There's not much that seems uniquely Blood of Dawnwalker for me to latch onto. But it'd be unfair to judge the whole thing based on a quick trailer-among-trailers at SGF. I reckon it made a better [[link]] impression when it graced our very own front page, though.
Blood of Dawnwalker is due out next year, 2026.