The Blood of Dawnwalker is taking remarkably big swings for developer Rebel Wolves' debut game. I played the upcoming RPG for four hours earlier this month, and came away fascinated by how physically it involves the player in its world. Time is an action point-style resource that keeps the game's world moving forward, while protagonist Coen's playstyle varies greatly as a vampire by night and human by day.
While its third-person action and open-world setting betray its developer's experience on RPG hits The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, The Blood of Dawnwalker shows a clear drive to go deeper on role-playing elements. Catching up with game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, I suggest that a lot of the game's depth is typically reserved for isometric-style RPGs – think Baldur's Gate and Fallout, wherein rules and systems are used to reinforce their respective fantasies.
In another life, The Blood of Dawnwalker could have mirrored those examples even closer. "At the beginning of the game, we knew we wanted it to be third-person," shares Tomaszkiewicz, "[but] when we started thinking about combat, we thought maybe we would make it isometric."
"In the end, we thought that telling the story and being immersed with your characters is best when you see it all the time on screen," the director continues. "A big part of RPGs is itemization – changing your character, putting new clothes and weapons on, and so on. You want to see them on your character all the time, and in isometric games it works but the characters are smaller and the details are harder to see. We knew we had the technology and know-how to do really detailed characters, knew those materials would be really good, and decided to create a third-person [perspective] where you can change the distance from the character."
Fighting talk
The Blood of Dawnwalker star was "slightly too excited" in his audition to veteran Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 devs: "I probably shouldn't have looked that up"
Rebel Wolves opted for real-time combat for the same immersive gains. "The goal we had was to not create combat where you see pretty stuff on the screen, like you're pressing a button and watching a movie. We wanted you to feel that you are in the center of combat, that you need to observe your opponent, and react, and learn to fight. I compare it to Guitar Hero, because there is a similar feeling that in the beginning – you cannot hit these buttons! – and after a week, you're doing it really fast [...] Here, you'll also have this learning curve."
I expected The Blood of Dawnwalker's combat to mirror The Witcher 3, which Tomaszkiewicz directed, but in play it's quicker and more dynamic. Your mouse or analog stick input determines the direction Coen's attack swings from – mixing it up makes enemies less likely to block your blows – and similarly, blocking or parrying a blow requires matching the direction it's aimed from.
How Coen fights depends on the time of day. When the sun is up, he's a fairly normal swordfighter, able to use combat techniques via an ability wheel – but not his vampiric powers. Those are limited to nocturnal use, letting Coen fight with his claws and other supernatural powers. A Dishonored-style blink allows you to reposition instantly and often, and while you can't heal by eating food in vampire form, you can snatch an enemy in combat to gain health with quick gulps of their blood.
Playing Coen at the start of his journey means I don't have access to some of his more dramatic powers, but it already feels exceptional – comparable to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Dragon's Dogma 2, but easier to get to grips with. It's right on the sweet spot, involved enough for the sickos and straightforward enough for more casual fans – how did Rebel Wolves get there without over-cooking?
"Oh god, it was a lot of iteration," laughs Tomaszkiewicz. Combat started with a simpler concept and "quite easy" opponents, but it "started to get boring" over multiple playthroughs, leading to further additions. "From iteration to iteration we'd add something, change something, and in the end we are where we are now. There is no other way [to get it right] than iterating and playing all the time. If you're playing this game hundreds of times and still have fun when you fight, that was the goal – to create a combat system you can enjoy and you can repeat."
"The example I like to give here is Max Payne," he adds. "I replayed it five times, because I like the things I can do there, how it looks, and so on. I wanted to create it here, with similar feeling [and] different tools."
Through the lens of combat, I get the impression that Rebel Wolves has spent the last four years untangling itself from the RPG genre's norms and expectations – instead following the fun and seeing where it leads. Its much-lauded time system is "like Persona," says Tomaszkiewicz, but argues The Blood of Dawnwalker's shifting day and night dynamic is unlike anything we've seen before. "There are no games we could have compared this to. We created two different loops, and [essentially] needed to create two games in one."
"You can play the same quest at day or night, and it's a little bit different," the director adds. "Different choices, different consequences – it's a lot."
