At night there is something very appealing about the cathedral. The sacred space, meaning prayer and reflection, takes on almost a different shape when the sun sets, blows away the candle light, and illuminates the mystery of mystery. They remind us of a past where vampires, werewolves, ghosts and youkai are intensely convinced of the supernatural. If there is anywhere in the world where the veil feels thin, it is in the cathedral. In my Gamescom preview Dawnwalker’s BloodBut I see one of the religious shelters of Vere Sangola in two different lights – literally. Once a Christian monument, it twists in the daytime to a place of vampire worship, but at night, an eerie silence seduces creatures lurking in the shadows. In some respects, visiting during the day somehow gets worse.
Rebel Wolves’ unique day/night system is the heart of Dawnwalker’s blood. Simply put, during the day, our protagonist, Cohen (Dawnwalker of the same name), has no access to his vampire powers and can use only his sharp combat skills instead. At night, when the moon rises, the beast settles, giving him everything from super-powerful jumps to bloody, jagged claws. The aforementioned church sequence is a perfect example. During the day, we approach the resident butler peacefully to learn more about the series of underground catacombs. The sun shines during the day and the villagers are coming out. But at night there is a deafening sense of silence, and one wrong step can end with a horde of security guards with torches and pitchforks listed.
In many ways, it feels like the Rebel Wolves are designing two completely different video games. Several elements of combat are carried day and night, but each one has a fundamental difference that feels unique. In a UK-only interview with Gamescom’s , we ask Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, founder of Rebel Wolves, about the team’s approach to Dawnwalker’s design and how they have worked to ensure that time has a real impact.
“When I started this company, I said I wanted to do some crazy things,” Thomaskivich says with a laugh. “The idea is that we don’t want to create another open world story-driven RPG. We want to evolve this genre and add something new. We wanted to focus on the story and raise emotions. That’s why we added a time limit to the game (players have 22 days to find a missing family).
“We then talked about creating a really unique hero that we’ve never seen in pop culture before. We talked about a lot of characters. (Cohen) He’s broken because he’s human, but I thought this character was really cool, but a lot of games make you feel like a goat. We were really worried because once you start thinking about it, we realized that we can share some systems because it’s two different games.
“We are all artists,” he continues. “We want to create something that’s fresh and fueled and motivated. We know that designing these systems can be difficult, but you’re evolving and your skills are better.
And I’d argue that now there’s a need for some “madness.” It’s no secret that there’s fatigue around open world RPGs. Many people boast beautiful and vast environments, but they fall into the same “go here and do this” routine too often. Dawnwalker’s day and night system is a notable difference point, but it’s its core open world game. So, ask Tomaszkiewicz how the team plans to make things interesting.
“We don’t want to be recurring,” says Thomaskievich. “We’re all gamers. We’ve been playing everything there is since the 90s. When we get the feeling that something is getting repetitive, we search for solutions – “How do you make this unique?”
Battle is one of the main places that rebel wolves want to guide their creativity. Tomaszkiewicz recalls watching Batman: Arkham Asylum’s battle. He said, “It’s in a lot of games. We liked what was going on visuals, animations, and what was happening on the screen. The combat is very difficult – our idea has always been to combine these two systems.
Skirmishes can unfold in a variety of ways, as demonstrated in rather unfortunate bandit groups. For those who want to play a little more safely, slower, more systematic block-centric combat, and more directional, aggressive, offensive attacks for those who want to play faster. “We want to give you the freedom of choice,” he tells me. “We wanted to bring video games closer to pen and paper tabletop RPGs. In the game, it’s predefined content, but you choose how to do it.”
Dawnwalker monsters also have quite a bit of creativity. On the surface, it feels like a video game focused on vampires, but it resembles vampires Grit, Grime and Gore. Vampire franchise and Baldur Gate 3 sove, inhalation like an affair. Tomaszkiewicz quickly reveals that Dawnwalker is not about vampires, and that future installments of Rebel Wolves’ dark fantasy saga may see other supernatural creatures becoming the centre.
“It’s really important to note that our game is not a vampire game,” stresses Tomaszkiewicz. “Our war includes various creatures of the night. In this origin story, Cohen had this vampire nature, so he needed a vampire, but when you’re thinking about the story, it’s not about vampires, not about other species.
Dawnwalker is the undead chimera of everything I love. It has a bloody Gothic mood, a religious rat-infected pull in a plague story, and a supernatural element of VTM and hardcore vampire media. Its day/night cycle and constantly changing combat are truly unique, and as a meaningful decision sucker, its choice-driven story feels like its alleyways. I couldn’t go practically, but I hope Dawnwalker will cure my dislike for everything about the open world – it says everything about the right thing, but that’s a huge hurdle for Vault. However, if that’s right, Dawnwalker could still be one of the most special “The Witcher’s Rivals.”
