The Blood of Dawnwalker Reviews Are In, and the Former Witcher 3 Devs May Have Built 2026’s Next RPG Obsession

Two million wishlists. One of Steam’s biggest sellers before launch. Critics calling it an instant classic, one of the best RPGs in years, and even a Game of the Year contender. The Blood of Dawnwalker has spent months living under the enormous shadow of The Witcher 3. Now that critics have actually played it, Rebel Wolves finally has the chance to prove this vampire RPG can stand on its own.

There was always going to be one uncomfortable question hanging over The Blood of Dawnwalker: is this just The Witcher 3 with vampires?

Rebel Wolves was founded by veterans of CD Projekt Red, including former The Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz. Medieval villages, monsters, muddy roads, morally questionable people and a sword-carrying protagonist did not exactly help avoid the comparison.

But the reviews are finally here, and the conversation is changing.

The game has already passed two million Steam wishlists, climbed into Steam’s top-selling games before release, and current critical reception is sitting firmly in the positive range. Some reviewers are going much further, calling it one of 2026’s best RPGs.

Human by Day, Vampire by Night

Europe is collapsing under war and plague when vampires decide humanity has finally become weak enough to stop hiding.

They seize control of Vale Sangora, a fictional Carpathian valley, and your family becomes trapped under the rule of the vampire lord Brencis. You play Coen, a Dawnwalker caught somewhere between human and vampire.

During the day, Coen fights as a human using swordsmanship and magic. When night falls, things get considerably less polite.

When night falls, things get considerably less polite.

His vampire form gains supernatural movement, brutal powers and new ways to approach areas that might be inaccessible during daylight. Your human and vampire abilities have separate progression paths, meaning the same character can feel completely different depending on when you decide to act.

There is one obvious problem.

Vampires need blood.

Ignore Coen’s hunger for too long and the game can make that problem very real. In one hands-on preview, a player successfully rescued a terrified man from a burning building, only for Coen’s hunger to take over once the man reached safety.

He saved him....Then immediately fed on him.

Imagine surviving a burning house only to discover the firefighter was actually emergency number two.

You Have 30 Days, and the Game Does Not Want You to Do Everything

This may be Dawnwalker’s most interesting idea.

Coen has 30 days to rescue his family.

Thankfully, the clock does not constantly tick while you explore or spend fifteen minutes comparing two swords that have almost identical stats. Instead, meaningful actions consume chunks of time. Certain quests, conversations, training sessions and decisions push the calendar forward.

That creates a very unusual RPG problem.

You cannot save everybody.

Ignore a quest and events may continue without you. Help one person and you may lose time that could have been spent somewhere else. Characters remember what you did, what you ignored and sometimes who suffered because of it.

For RPG players who normally clear every question mark before touching the main quest, this could be emotionally devastating.

The game is basically looking at completionists and saying:

No. Pick something.

And honestly, that pressure might be exactly what makes Vale Sangora feel alive.

Critics Are Really Into It

This is where things become exciting.

Some reviewers have gone extremely high.

CGMagazine gave it 9.5/10, describing it as an instant classic. PCGamesN awarded 9/10, praising the time system, world and freedom to make difficult choices. Insider Gaming also landed around the 9 range, while other outlets have described it as one of the strongest RPGs since The Witcher 3.

One critic described casually exploring a tower, discovering what looked like a small side quest, and eventually getting dragged into a story lasting several hours that became one of the most memorable parts of their playthrough.

That is exactly the kind of RPG design people remember.

You go looking for loot.

Three hours later you are emotionally attached to someone you met beside a broken cart.

Not every review is completely glowing, which is probably a good sign.

Some critics have pointed toward repetitive enemy behaviour, occasional technical issues and combat that can become predictable after enough hours. Others feel some of the game’s ambitious systems do not always go as deep as they initially appear.

But there seems to be much broader agreement around three things:

The world is excellent. The writing is strong. Your choices actually matter.

For a new studio launching its first game, that is a very good place to start.

Vale Sangora Looks Absolutely Miserable

And I mean that as a compliment.

Vale Sangora is muddy, diseased, violent and deeply unpleasant. Villages live under vampire control while ordinary people struggle with famine, religion, superstition and the remains of a society that was already collapsing before immortal blood drinkers decided to become the government.

That last part is important.

The vampires are not hiding inside one gothic castle waiting for you to arrive in the final mission.

They run the place.

Brencis and his court control land, resources and the people living beneath them. As Coen causes more trouble, the vampire government can respond with new rules and consequences.

You are not simply leveling up until you are strong enough to fight the final boss. You are slowly becoming an administrative nightmare for a vampire dictatorship. A noble profession.

Combat Could Be the Part That Divides Players

Fighting uses directional attacks and defences. Instead of repeatedly hitting one attack button, players need to read where strikes are coming from and respond appropriately.

The system has already drawn comparisons to Kingdom Come: Deliverance, although Dawnwalker makes things more approachable with visual indicators on standard difficulty levels.

Then night arrives and Coen stops behaving like a normal medieval swordsman.

Vampire abilities introduce supernatural movement, claws, blood powers and attacks capable of doing genuinely horrible things to enemies. Some abilities allow Coen to reach areas that his human form simply cannot access, making the day and night cycle important outside combat too.

It also creates a fun choice.

You can arrive somewhere during daylight like a relatively respectable swordsman. Or return after sunset as the reason villagers lock their doors.

Both seem valid.

This Is Starting to Look Bigger Than One Game

Rebel Wolves already describes The Blood of Dawnwalker as the first chapter of a new saga.

That sounded ambitious when the game was first announced.

It sounds considerably less ridiculous now.

A completely new studio is launching a brand-new $69.99 RPG with no famous franchise name protecting it. It has passed two million wishlists, climbed Steam’s sales charts before release and arrived to reviews ranging from solid recommendations to people basically shouting Game of the Year at their monitors.

The Witcher comparisons are not going away. You can see that DNA everywhere, from the muddy countryside and branching conversations to the morally questionable strangers asking Coen for increasingly complicated favours.

The Blood of Dawnwalker launches September 3, 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.