While Rebel Wolves’ upcoming RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker will feature vampires quite a bit in its world and story, the studio has revealed that it isn’t afraid to change how its vampires are depicted. In an interview with GamesRadar, game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz spoke about how the vampires in The Blood of Dawnwalker will be different from what we’ve seen of the creatures in other media. This, he noted, was part of the studio’s efforts to tell a story that happens to have vampires, rather than telling a story about vampires.
“We want to tell a story with vampires, not a story about vampires only,” said Tomaszkiewicz. “Our vampires are different. They are more wild and they have these small cliques, and sometimes those cliques fight with one another. Our vampires come from many regions of the world; we tell different stories throughout the game to show you their origins and why they are doing what they are doing. There are interesting stories to be told in the bond between them and how their relationships have changed over time.”
As for how exactly the vampires in The Blood of Dawnwalker will be different, Tomaszkiewicz noted that traditional parts of vampire fiction, like the creatures’ weakness to things like silver, garlic and sunlight will be different. In fact, silver will even play a key role in the upcoming RPG since it allows protagonist Coen to transform into the Dawnwalker—a hybrid that is human during the day and vampire at night.
“We have some traditional vampire themes, but aspects like silver, sunlight, and garlic work in different ways,” he said, going on to note that Coen’s transformation thanks to his suffering from silver poisoning is “another twist on the vampire fantasy.”
Coen’s status as the Dawnwalker also means that Rebel Wolves had to create distinct styles of gameplay to account for his human and vampire forms. According to Tomaszkiewicz, roaming the world during the day will have Coen at a disadvantage due to his human form being weaker. However, he will also have some other tools he can use to compensate for this weakness. At night, on the other hand, he will be able to use his vampiric powers. The director noted that every quest in The Blood of Dawnwalker has been designed to accommodate those gameplay styles.
“We needed to create two distinct gameplay loops,” explained Tomaszkiewicz. “While playing as a human, we wanted to give you the feeling that you’re weaker, but you’ll have different toys to play with to compensate. When you’re a vampire, you are not only stronger but able to wield vampyric capabilities to reach your goals. With every story, every quest line that we design, we have had to think about these two ways to play.”
Tomaszkiewicz had previously spoken about how The Blood of Dawnwalker will be a story with vampires rather than being about the creatures back in November 2025. In the same interview, he also spoke about games like Dishonored being major inspirations for Rebel Wolves.
The Blood of Dawnwalker is being developed for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and is slated for release this year. For more on the RPG, watch the launch year special video released by the studio just last week.
