Hello, and welcome back to my series on the top upcoming games of 2026. This week’s instalment will focus on Blood of Dawnwalker
Blood of Dawnwalker is an open-world, dark fantasy RPG set in 14th-century Europe. The story’s protagonist is Coen, human by day and vampire by night. He will battle other vampires and dark creatures to save his family, who have been taken by the vampire Lord Brencis, before time runs out.
Coen has 30 days and 30 nights to save his family.
This is one of the most interesting mechanics in the game. Throughout the game, you will always be able to see how many days you have left to save Coen’s family on the HUD. This serves more as a resource management system within the game than as an actual ticking clock. As players can explore the open-world for as long as they want without losing any time, however, completing major objectives and missions will cost time. Each day is split into 8 sections, and when players select missions, they can see how much time they are using by the hourglass marker. This means the player cannot complete every mission or objective in a single game and must choose wisely.
The players’ choices will all have consequences that will affect their game and the world around them. The game has a reputation system called infamy. As he targets the vampires’ operations and high-ranking enemies, his infamy will rise, the vampires will respond, and the world will become harder to navigate, with more enemies, military checkpoints in previously peaceful areas, and more. As Coen’s infamy rises, he will encounter more characters, including the resistance, who are fighting against the vampires in power. Each character has their own motivations and storylines, and the player will have to choose which to follow and which not to, and deal with the resulting consequences.
Blood of Dawnwalker has an in-depth combat system, as players will have to parry attacks in one of four directions based on the attack that the enemies are throwing at them. This is the same as when you are attacking: you must look closely at where your enemy is vulnerable or unable to parry, and attack in that specific direction. This diverges from the button-mashing combat of other games and forces the player to think tactically. If this is not your style, there is an option that will make this easier at the cost of more stamina.
As this is a vampire game, gameplay differs significantly between day and night. During the day, Coen can utilise physical and hex attacks that require ability charges. Hexes can let you use boiling blood, but doing so costs a small amount of health. Physical abilities that require ability charges that are earned by attacking and parrying include artery attack, charge, acrid dust and a broad swing.
However, at night, the red health bar doubles as Coen’s blood hunger bar, and he must drink blood to utilise his vampiric abilities, which include shadow step for short-range teleportation, feral minds, which sends enemies into a frenzy, and they will attack each other and many more dark abilities.
Players will be able to explore the vast world of Vale Sangora, which has been meticulously created by Rebel Wolves using Unreal Engine 5. The graphics of the dark medieval world are sure to give players hours and hours of exciting, visually stunning exploration of the open world.
This will change players’ strategies and force them to make different choices. They will also need to manage the blood hunger; otherwise, Coen could lose control and kill an important character in the world.
Players can acquire these abilities and more as they play through the game. They must find books and shrines in order to level up themselves and their abilities to make them strong enough to destroy the vampire lord Brencis and save Coen’s family.
Dawn of Bloodwalker is set to release on September 3rd, 2026, on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X and S. Players can pre-order the game now.
The game has been developed by Rebel Wolves and will be published by Bandi Namco. Rebel Wolves was founded by experienced developers in 2022, including Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who worked on The Witcher 3 at CD Projekt Red.
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