The Blood of Dawnwalker: Everything you need to know about the vampire RPG

The Blood of Dawnwalker is an exciting new vampire RPG, and we now know when we can expect the experience to arrive, with a release date officially set for September.

As the debut new game from Rebel Wolves, which is formed of ex-Witcher 3 devs who previously worked on at CD Projekt Red, we're set to step into the role of a half-human, half-vampire called Coen in an atmospheric, medieval eastern European setting. With 30 days and 30 nights to try and save his family, it promises to bring us a "narrative sandbox" with impactful choices and two unique combat styles.

From everything we've seen so far, it's shaping up to be one of the most exciting upcoming RPGs on the horizon, and with the Summer Game Fest schedule for 2026 set to come our way next month, I have my fingers crossed that we may see more. In the meantime, read on to find a helpful breakdown of everything you need to know about The Blood of Dawnwalker.

The Blood of Dawnwalker release date confirmed

The Blood of Dawnwalker release date is set for September 3, 2026.

Rebel Wolves and Bandai Namco confirmed the release date in a Road to Launch stream, which dropped some fresh trailers and gave us another look at gameplay.

This release date came after the Xbox Game Showcase 2025 initially confirmed the 2026 year window. So, you won't have to wait much longer to step into the open-world vampiric RPG, but if you're looking for something to check out in the meantime, our pick of the best horror games is here for you.

The Blood of Dawnwalker platforms

Once it releases, you'll be able to play The Blood of Dawnwalker on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

It's still something of a big question mark regarding Blood of the Dawnwalker joining the lineup of upcoming Switch 2 games someday. But you never know! If Nintendo gives us any surprising release date news, we'll be sure to keep you posted.

The Blood of Dawnwalker trailer

The first cinematic trailer for The Blood of Dawnwalker is here, and you can watch it for yourself above. In the clip, we see Coen desperately trying to save his little sister, Lunka, who has the plague. The two run into an abandoned ruin, where they become surrounded by the King's men who are aiming to kill Lunka in order to stop the spread of the disease. However, before the little girl dies, a group of vampires suddenly descend on the army like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The trailer gives us our first real look at the vampire Brencis, who takes up the fallen king's crown and gives Lunka his blood after Coen begs him to save her. Don't let the child-saving antics fool you, though: Brencis is by no means a good guy.

"I've been watching your little valley. Pestilence, famine, killing, and blood spilled carelessly like water. Things will be different now for all of you." he says after destroying the crown and letting his undead friends literally tear a human limb from limb in front of the siblings. His words are pretty ominous if you ask us, and we imagine that nothing good can come from waking the ancient vampire's wrath.

The Blood of Dawnwalker story and setting

The Blood of Dawnwalker — Story Trailer - YouTube

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The Blood of Dawnwalker is set in AD 1347 in a fictional kingdom called Vale Sangora that's located "somewhere in the Carpathians" (aka Central to Southeastern Europe). In this world, darkness has spread as humans face a plague followed by the imposing force of the ancient vampire Brencis - who forces the human population into a life of servitude and blood taxes.

We follow a young man named Coen, who ends up with the vampiric curse. However, Coen isn't a full-blown creature of the night just yet. He is still half-human, meaning that he is a Dawnwalker: a being who can still navigate both the night and day. Described as a Jekyll and Hyde-style character, he'll need all the supernatural abilities now afforded to him as he races against the clock to try and save his family in only 30 days and 30 nights.

A story trailer (which you can watch above) dropped in April 2026 that paints a more complete picture of the plot, with glimpses of Coen's family and the way in which he got his vampiric side. We also know that Brencis will have a massive part to play in the story as he is set to be the game's main antagonist, and we see him pop up quite a bit in the trailer.

Coen's actions will largely revolve around his bond with his sick sister named Lunka. The official Dawnwalker Twitter account has also been gradually posting characters' backstories for all of us to explore. For instance, we recently learned about the origin of an ancient Greek vampire who appeared in the cinematic trailer called Xanthe.

"She was a priestess, once, on a remote Greek island, the name of which she has since forgotten," the post reads. The account also shared that Brencis was born during the Roman Empire, and we discovered that the other vampires in the trailer are named Bakir and Ambrus.

Excitingly, it's also been revealed that the story of The Blood of Dawnwalker is akin to a narrative sandbox and is said to be "so non-linear that you can align with the human rebellion or finish the game without ever meeting them". Once the prologue wraps, you'll essentially be able to have free reign over how you approach saving your family, meaning you'll have a lot of agency to shape our own journey in the RPG.

The open-world setting we'll venture to is said to be smaller in scale than other adventures, so you feel like you know place. Speaking with GamesRadar+, creative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz explained that the world takes after Baldur's Gate 3 in terms of its small but dense world that offers plenty of freedom of choice.

Blood of the Dawnwalker vampire lore

More details also shed light on vampiric side of the RPG in a Xbox Wire blog post, which revealed how one vampire turns another. With a different spin on the classic lore we've come to know in popular culture, The Blood of Dawnwalker sets out to "honor the classic vision" of "elegant nobility of the night", while also "introducing some twists that make our vampires stand out in more distinct, sometimes unsettling ways."

One such way is in how a human gets turned, which sees a vampire pull out one of their teeth and "pierce the heart of their chosen target". This ritual is said to "play a crucial role" in Coen's transformation into a dawnwalker, but as a half-human, something is said to have gone wrong in his case. While this is only lightly teased, what happens to Coen promises to "have far-reaching implications" in the world. How intriguing.

The Blood of Dawnwalker gameplay

We've steadily been getting a better idea of Blood of Dawnwalker's gameplay since its initial reveal. Firstly, we know that it will be a single-player open-world game that is also marketed as the first chapter in a "new saga" from Konrad Tomaszkiewicz (one of the directors of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt). The upcoming game will be a story-focused RPG with multiple endings.

Some gameplay footage appeared in a trailer which debuted during the Xbox Game showcase 2025 (which you can watch above). In it, we see protagonist Coen dodging blows and fighting in close quarters with a sword as he speaks of monsters that roam in the shadows and take advantage of those in the light.

The follow-up Xbox Wire post directly after the showcase also shed some light on Coen's combat skills. The developers at Rebel Moon studied "medieval fighting styles", with some trained swordsmen even on team. As a human by day, Coen will learn magic that's "raw" and "ritual-based", with dark primordial origins - meaning that the magic will be tied to grounded elements such as blood, heat, and air. Casting requires you to become a sort of conduit to occult carvings and runes, too.

At night, Coen's vampiric side awakens, where you can choose to fight with your "claws, enhanced strength", and "dark powers", that are "only available after sunset". If you do use these skills, it will affect your human side and feeds into a system that's tied to Coen's blood craving - which is connected to his health and hunger.

Lose health, and he becomes more suspectable to losing control and giving into his vampiric side. This can even lead to some bad consequences, and potentially even lock you out of certain questlines. To that point, Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz also revealed that the RPG is a sandbox that gives you a lot of freedom to do things like "kill off a lot of NPCs" - including really important ones you encounter on your journey.

Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz also explained that certain powers will also feed into traversal, pointing to a skill known as "Planeshift", "which allows [Coen] to break the law of gravity and walk on the walls and ceilings", while another known as Shadowstep, "allows Coen to teleport short distances".

The devs have also confirmed that romance will for sure be a thing, which is no doubt excellent news to those who like their RPGs a little bit more... emotionally immersive. "There are romance options, yes," Tomaskiewicz confirmed to a write-in question during the New Game+ Showcase 2026, though he stopped short of divulging more detail. "I'll leave that for the future to talk about. However, yes, you can expect to build relationships with characters."

In a 20-minute gameplay overview video, we also got to see more of the RPG in action during a quest that takes place midgame (which is said to feature "legendary swords and a haunted alms house"). While we don't get much more detail on the questline itself beyond the fact that Coen is chasing leads to discover a "powerful weapon", we are shown some of the gameplay systems, including swordplay against travelling bandits on the road.

We see Coen is able to cast a hex known as "Burning Blood", which boils the blood of his foes and burns their skin to deal physical damage over time. We also see how you can perform finisher moves that in one case decapitates an opponent's head clean off.

There's some insight into the skill trees, too, with Coen having human perks, vampire perks, shared perks, and active abilities to invest in as you progress. Openly opposing vampires can also have consequences, with the gameplay video highlighting how our choices will impact our approach as we get further into the story. For more, be sure to check out our The Blood of Dawnwalker Gamescom 2025 preview.

The Blood of Dawnwalker 30 days and 30 nights

Time is also set to be a massive mechanic in the upcoming game. In fact, to complete the main objective of Dawnwalker, you only have 30 days and 30 nights to save your family.

Now, if you were worried that a time constraint would make you miss anything on your first playthrough, don't worry: exploring doesn't tick the clock forward. Instead, completing quests will move time along. Of course, there is some urgency tied to these quests, so you can't completely relax either.

That's due to a feature that will appear in Blood of Dawnwalker known as a "limited time" quest system.

"In short - the player has limited time to complete the main goal - exploring the world doesn't move the time forward, but every quest does. It plays a huge role in our narrative setup, and we'll be expanding on what it means later on," explained Rebel Wolves senior PR manager Mateusz Greiner.

Greiner also assured fans that when choosing what to do in the game, so you can plan your time wisely, "it will always be clearly telegraphed to the player if an activity moves time forward (and by how much) - players will have control over it."

In a Q&A series, Rebel Wolves also answered fan questions, including one asking how the time mechanic works. The answer from the studio is quite illuminating. Once again confirming Coen will have 30 days and 30 nights to complete his main objective, the team explained that while the game doesn't end after that period of time, "Coen's family might suffer the consequences" if you waste that time.

Rebel Wolves also reiterated that The Blood of Dawnwalker doesn't have a regular clock, and completing quests is the only way time pushes forward, with each quest having an associated "time cost".

Can you pre-order The Blood of Dawnwalker?

Yes! Blood of The Dawnwalker pre-orders are now officially live following news of the RPG's release date. Currently, you can pre-order across all platforms both physically and digitally, with a few different editions available.

The standard edition comes in at $69.99 / £59.99 and includes the Sangoran Wayfarer Armor Set. You can also snap up the Eclipse edition for $79.99 / £69.99, and this includes a digital world compendium and comic book, the digital soundtrack, and the aforementioned armor set.

For those looking for more goodies, there's also set to be a limited Collector's edition, which includes a Coen figurine, steelbook, world map, physical world compendium, and all digital extras.

For more future releases, head over to our guides on all the upcoming PS5 games, upcoming Xbox Series X games, and new PC games.