We go hands on with the debut AAA RPG from developer Rebel Wolves, The Blood of Dawnwalker, which aims to follow in the footsteps of The Witcher 3.17:00, 07 Jul 2026The Blood of Dawnwalker is so far shaping up to be one of 2026's standout RPGs, at least if our four hours' worth of hands-on time is anything to go by.‌I can imagine that trying to follow up a game as generational as The Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt would be an intimidating task. However, for developer Rebel Wolves, headed up by one of that game’s co-directors, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, it’s also something of an asset to be leveraged and then built upon.‌This was my main takeaway after spending a generous four hours playing through The Blood of Dawnwalker’s dark yet gripping prologue. And though it’s true that it looks and plays a lot like Geralt’s swansong adventure, as expected, I was equally taken aback by just how much Dawnwalker wants to be its own thing - not least by giving its protagonist, Coen, a curious case of bloodthirst. Said concoction has so far sunk its fangs into me a lot more than I was expecting, with Rebel Wolves’ debut title already well positioned to deliver the vampire-themed action RPG I’ve been craving for so long.‌My preview kicked off right at the start of the game, with innocent farmhand and swordmaster in training, Coen of Laslea, suffering from all manner of family-ruining nightmares. Turns out he has a good reason to be. Because as well as educating me on the basic differences between standard swordplay and the more vampire-centric combat, this initial dream sequence was the perfect onramp to set the surprisingly bleak tone this tight-knit community find themselves in.Overseen by an ancient vampire lord, Brencis, once a year he returns to Laslea for midnight mass, where any weak villagers are culled in a demented, blood-drinking ceremony. The goal of my time playing was to prepare for this ritual accordingly, being an ideal excuse to poke through Dawnwalker’s starting location.‌For the most part this meant stumbling upon different micro-stories and engaging in a litany of the various sprinkled-about NPC interactions available, all of which worked wonderfully to make Coen’s community feel like a living, breathing place. Shame it won’t be around for much longer, eh?More impressive than this, however, was the dark cloud that was midnight mass being ever present in the voices of almost everyone I chose to speak to. It didn’t take long for me to feel the community’s fear of Brencis’ arrival, which Coen himself has a particularly good reason to be concerned about too, given his mother’s ailing state. The event serves as a ticking time bomb of sorts in the prologue. A fact that’s rather fitting considering the way The Blood of Dawnwalker uses the passing hours as a currency, with each important action Coen takes advancing the day closer towards the night time.Usually any form of time management in a game annoys me. After all, who wants to be precise and thoughtful about their actions when wanting to enjoy a world? Especially one as luscious and believable as the one The Blood of Dawnwalker seemingly presents. Here, though, Rebel Wolves has been careful to not have Coen move hours forward in real time. Instead, it sets the world up so that you will only be able to do a set number of activities within it rather than absolutely all of them.‌As a result, I found myself being selective about who in the community I chose to help, whether it was rescuing a neighbour’s brother from a pack of wolves down a well or undergoing an investigation to find out who in the village stole an old woman’s banner. Choosing one task over another advances time, true, but in a way that’s always clear, forces you to consider decisions, and isn’t intended to catch players out or unwittingly surprise them.Bound by bloodThe Blood of Dawnwalker, from what I can already tell, would have delivered an impressively textured world even without the added spice of time management. Laslea, though small, presented me with countless opportunities to get to know it better for the short time it stays around prior to Brencis’ arrival, and this included getting to grips with combat.Coen’s swordplay is made up of the usual bout of parries, blocks, and dodges, true, but a spanner in the works comes in the form of what’s called ‘omnidirectional’ input, where the way you tilt left analogue stick during attacks and blocks corresponds with where Coen will swing or defend against. It’s a much more involved brand of combat that solves one of my most major gripes with The Witcher 3, which, when combined with unique active abilities that are tied to a cooldown and deployed using the left shoulder button, still gives you plenty of options.‌Such involved melee combat also transfers nicely into Coen’s brand of vampire-fuelled abilities. Omnidirectional actions are able to be deployed still, except now Coen does so with his claws rather than a sword, but you gain the additional options to suck enemies dry to drain them of health and even ‘bamf’ behind them in order to catch them off guard. Since my preview took place during the prologue there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity to grapple on the full extent of Coen’s vampire powers, but there’s a lot of promise here. And better yet, although they will only be usable at night, going claws and fangs out towards foes appears to offer up a decent degree of differentiation from standard sword combat.The other major way Coen’s nature as a titular Dawnwalker manifests itself, of course, is traversal. When day turns into night you won’t always have to travel on foot, with movement skills like Planeshifting (walking on walls), Shadow Stepping (teleportation), and Claw-Riding (sliding effortlessly down walls) all contributing to the feel of what it means to explore as a vampire.‌Most of these actions felt fluid to pull off, even if for now most seemed confined to specific areas or territory types located throughout the map. So fluid are they, in fact, I can imagine having them ripped away as Coen in the daytime will make for a short readjustment period in terms of how to best get around as a human.Without going too much into prologue spoilers, Coen’s transformation into a vampire has plenty of drama to it. In a way that nicely sets up the stakes for the ensuing 50 or so hours to come. After just a few short hours I already feel like I’ve got a sense of who this guy is, what he’s capable of, and how he intends to claim vengeance against Brencis.This, combined with what promises to be an extremely flexible combat system and beautiful world that’s begging to be explored, is setting up The Blood of Dawnwalker to expertly deliver on (and potentially even surpass) its lineage as a Witcher 3 successor. If what you’re after is a dramatic and fulfilling action RPG with bite, The Blood of Dawnwalker has all the makings of an ideal open-world vampire adventure. Here’s hoping Rebel Wolves manages to stick the landing.Article continues belowThe Blood of Dawnwalker is scheduled to launch on PS5, Xbox, and PC this September 3, 2026 .