Considering the volume of high quality releases we’ve had in 2026 so far, it’s surprising how much new high value IP we’ve had.

Pragmata. Crimson Dawn. Reanimal. Now The Blood of Dawnwalker. Big budget games that are branching out with their own worlds and stories. In a world where sequels and profits are priortised, that feels incredibly refreshing.

What’s also refreshing is just how damn good Blood of Dawnwalker is. At times, it does feel like a classic 7/10 with some awkward platforming, getting backed into a corner during fights with no way to move out, and some clunky glitches here and there, but there’s so much goodness in here that it offsets a lot of the jank.

There’s a lot about this game I wouldn’t normally love. A time limit that kicks off the moment you get out of the Prologue. A directional combat system that feels a little akin to Kingdom: Come Deliverance. A game I couldn’t get on with. But somehow, someway, this game has shot right up my Game of the Year list. And to me, it came out of nowhere as it wasn’t even really on my radar.

Yet, it should have been, with individuals responsible for games I love like The Witcher 3. And those references become so clear right off the bat. You play Coen, an individual known as a Dawnwalker, which means by day he’s human with some super powers, and by night he turns into a Vampire, biting necks, using witchcraft and generally being a force of nature and hard to kill.

Set in a fictional 14th century, Coen’s family and his people have been taken over by the rule of Vampires or Vrakhir. These creatures are led by Brencis, an usurper who rules the valley together with his three allies – Xanthe, Ambrus and Bakir. Coen’s run ins with them have left him forever changed with his family being kidnapped and him being only partially turned.

With the help of a nun named Anca, a woman who’s been helping him with herbs for Coen’s sick mother, Coen devises a plan to get them back but to do so he must traverse the massive Vale Sangora and beyond on a quest to Greifberg Castle.

The problem is, Coen only has 30 days and nights to save them before Brencis ritual begins. And despite the vast amount of quests there are, each one ticks down your time limit, with some taking more time than others to complete. You’ll need to be extremely tactical with the quests you take as you only have a limited amount of time to gain Brencis attention and weaken his connection to make him vulnerable to attack.

This plays out on the Court Screen – which is a bit like the Assassin’s Creed hitlist – where you complete a series of missions in order to draw one of Brencis followers out of hiding and unlock a quest to defeat them. The Assassin’s Creed comparisons are surprisingly clear too, as you also get Neustradt Towers you have to climb in order to get a vantage point for new quests.

You can also stealth assasinate and hurt your enemies, with bites and appearing behind them unsuspectingly. But when it comes to the combat itself and the feel of movement, I felt closer to Geralt than Ezio. Ducking, weaving, using large swords with strikes coupled with magic that can be used alongside. Even the blocking and parrying,  with each level my character growing stronger.

The game itself is chunky in size, with the main quest taking anywhere between 30-40 hours and the option for it to go longer by playing some other missions once it’s over and 50 levels to get through. The quality of the quests is good too, with some great writing in exploration, though I did find a bit of repetition with set templates, particularly for Court quests.

In between the story beats, side quests – like learning about your dad’s history or helping out a cousin in a tough scrape – the Court quests make up the bulk of the game as you try to anger each of Brencis’ allies. For instance, with Ambrus that’s disrupting blood shipments and freeing prisoners, but also picking off elite soldier targets and finding Headhunters for others.

Each time you successfully complete a court quest, your Infamy bar increases, from insignificant to Dreaded as you defeat allies and disrupt Brencis court.

The game flow works really well and the time limit was not as awful as I feared it would be. It’s pretty well paced, you can pack a lot into it, but equally time can go by really fast and you’ll worry when you still haven’t downed an enemy and you’re nearly a third of the way through. So there’s always a sense of pressure there.

To compliment this, you will keep levelling as you complete quests and defeat foes, gathering active abilities and character traits through swordmastery, vamperims and witchcraft, each talent tree giving you very different abilities – certain abilities not available until particular times of day or levels of corruption that have been reached. It creates unique strategies that means you can mix up what you want to focus on and how effective you are at certain traits.

Similarly, there’s a whole bunch of potions and poultices you can craft, again some only available day or night, from healing items to item enhancing properties, each used in battle or from your inventory as you gather ingredients throughout the map and looting from bodies.

Blood of the Dawnwalker is a great hybrid game with a good action feel, some strong characters and compelling storylines. It also looks and plays fantastically and feels like a great vampire game between your actions, the use of claws in fighting, shadowstepping to high heights, even compelling of souls to recreate death sequences and learn more about specific memories, as well as using Focus Mode to find clear points of interest.

With some tough and interesting decisions to make over the course of the game, including whether to give into your hunger or try to reason with your peers – to venturing a condensed but open world filled with dynamic events and chance encounters. It’s awesome, and I cannot believe how much it’s drawn me in and kept me glued to my pad.

Without doubt, this is one of the best games I’ve played in 2026 and one of the best new IPs I’ve played in years! Rebel Wolves have built something special and a franchise we’re all going to be talking about years to come.

Verdict

The Blood of Dawnwalker is a fantastic starting point for a brand new franchise that manages to blend the best of games like The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed and Kingdom Come into one package. Some jank and rough edges do hold this back just a little bit, but with some quality of life updates, it’s going to be a total complete package in short order. A compelling story, with great action, solid choices, and an intriguing world that you’ll want to explore from top to bottom, blended by an unsettling tension as time is always ticking away in the background. A fantastic debut from Rebel Wolves – I cannot wait to see where they take this series next. 

Pros

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Blood of the Dawnwalker is out on PC, PS, and Xbox on September 3. 

Reviewed on Xbox Series X

Code Kindly Provided by Bandai Namco for review purposes