The Blood of Dawnwalker, the upcoming debut project from the team of ex-CD Projekt Red developers at Rebel Wolves, is drip-feeding lore on its vampiric characters, and I'm genuinely hooked.
As someone who will gleefully play, watch, read, listen, and otherwise engage with anything and everything vampire-related, I've been fully on-board with Dawnwalker since it first bared its long, jagged teeth earlier this month, but I promise that isn't just because it's about vampires. We've only seen a few minutes of cinematics and tiny glimpses of gameplay, and although I've loved every second of what I've seen, it's the lore that's being shared on social media that's really selling me on the game.
The official Dawnwalker Twitter account has been gradually dropping backstories for its characters, and although it's mostly introductory stuff, you can already tell it's setting the stage for something big. Rebel Wolves said the game is the start of a "brand new role-playing saga," and you can definitely feel the foundations of that being built in these character descriptions.
Xanthe, for example, is a vampire who's "older than seems possible." She's been around so long that she's forgotten the remote Greek island she was once priestess of, and her ancient wisdom gives her the illusion of insanity. Really, though, she "understands the true nature of the world better than anyone. And deep down, she's terrified."
The player character is named Coen, who was the oldest child of a peasant family before being turned into a Dawnwalker, a human vampire hybrid. He's "terrified" by his newfound powers, but also liberated "from the constraints and duties placed upon him." I'm eager to learn more about Coen, but his backstory is the least interesting to me.
I'm most intrigued by Caeso Burrienus Laurentius, a former noble and Senator of the Roman Empire who loses his humanity – but not his thirst for power – when he's turned into a vampire.
Bakir, who can be seen gnashing away on some humans in Dawnwalker's reveal trailer, is the most unambiguously bad guy of the whole lot. "Some men just want to see the world burn – and Bakir is one of them," reads the official description. He thirsted for blood even before he was a vampire, burning and pillaging across Central Asia, but now "he wants people to know his name – and tremble as they hear it."
Finally, Ambrus is the most recent to have turned. "Ambitious and thrilled with his newly acquired powers, there's nothing he'll shy away from, no red line he won't cross," reads his description. Although he's handsome as hell, he lived a rough life as a human and is "more than ready to settle the score with the world and all who spurned him."
I'm hoping there's more lore to come to hold us over until the big gameplay showcase this summer, because frankly, I've already watched the reveal trailer and pored over the above lore an unhealthy amount of times. Rebel Wolves has yet to announce a release date or window, which saddens me.
In the meantime, here are the best RPGs you can play today.
