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"

Before landing The Blood of Dawnwalker's lead role as vampire protagonist Coen, actor Will de Renzy-Martin summarizes his prior work in games succinctly: "I walk into a room, I scream 'grenade!', and then I walk out again."

It's a far cry, then, from the demands of playing Coen. In The Blood of Dawnwalker's prologue, we see his quiet village life torn apart. His loved ones are slaughtered and kidnapped following blood tithes to their vampiric overlord, while Coen himself is forcibly turned into a vampire and left to die in the sunlight, surviving only because he's left part-human. Believably portraying that traumatic descent is a tall order, as is the sheer amount of work required for the main character of a 40+ hour game.

The actor is no stranger to games, with recent credits including 007 First Light and Crimson Desert. But the story of The Blood of Dawnwalker, which can play out in many different ways depending on the players' decisions as Coen, offered an unusual treat. "It's been a massive pleasure to spend so much time working on something so specific," Renzy-Martin tells me, suitably, in the booth of a converted crypt. "It's very rare you get to do that."

Reflections

When Renzy-Martin auditioned to play Coen, he had "fairly limited information" on the character and The Blood of Dawnwalker's wider world. He landed a callback, where he learned the game was being made by Rebel Wolves – a studio co-founded by veterans from The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red. "I probably shouldn't have looked that up before the recall," he admits. "I was slightly too excited! But here we are, so I'm glad it all went my way."

From the four hours I've played, Renzy-Martin convincingly captures Coen with rawness and pain. Equally impressive is how quickly we're made to care for the hero. Playing the prologue, much of my time is spent fetching medicine for Coen's mother and helping his siblings fish – making me all the more empathetic for him when, later, I lose control in dialogue and fatally drink from one of his terrified friends.

Renzy-Martin says the senselessness of Coen's devastation draws him to the character. "The really interesting thing about him is that there's no reason why this has happened to him, his life was hard enough as it was," he says. "He's weak at the start of the game, he's not drawing from these massive reserves of power that are available to a superhero. He's just someone thrust into the spotlight [...] That's a fascinating character to portray, and it's been amazing to see through that journey and find the different [places] where that can end up."

For a long time, the actor admits he had "absolutely no idea" that Coen's story marked the beginning of a saga spanning from 14th-century Europe to the modern day. The silver penny dropped with The Blood of Dawnwalker's announcement trailer, which includes a timeline-style shot dating the RPG's medieval setting. "I was watching it and was like 'Oh, it's from this time, that's exciting,'" he recalls. "I then spent the next few months worrying – is it a saga about Coen?!"

"By the end of recording the game, I could see how it's going to shape up," he continues. "Not what the plan is, but how it will shape into a bigger universe. But it didn't affect [my performance] at all, because it's such a self-contained thing that plays out. The overarching context adds a bit more zhuzh, but that's something that's going to be experienced within the game."

When I parted with Coen he was freshly-turned, setting out to dismantle Vale Sangora's royal vampire court and find his family. It remains to be seen how we'll reach the modern era, but I look forward to seeing how Renzy-Martin carries Coen through the centuries – especially as the scope of Rebel Wolves' ambitious RPG becomes clearer.

From its first hands-on preview to revealing developer interviews, dive into this month's Big Preview for Blood of Dawnwalker