Published Jul 7, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

Since graduating from The Los Angeles Film School, Jason has worked as an editor for the local news, as well as a producer of several short films and podcasts. His extensive knowledge of film production and narrative storytelling has enabled him to travel the world, writing about the projects he is passionate about in the realms of film, anime, and gaming. “Every Day Is A Level Up”

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While there will be no shortage of shallow action games to choose from coming out this September, The Blood of the Dawnwalker proved in an exclusive preview that it will provide a fascinating world, narrative, and combat depth that action RPG fans have waited for. Bandai Namco and the newly established Rebel Wolves, made up of creative veterans from CD Projekt RED, are working together to release an original open-world game that feels like a brilliant mix of Baldur’s Gate’s branching plotlines and The Witcher’s varied combat.

Nowadays, the best open-world games have to nail several aspects to make their worlds feel alive, but few have found ways to make themselves stand out from the dozens of bloated action games vying for gamers’ time and energy. Thankfully, during a three-hour preview, The Blood of the Dawnwalker strikes a lot of the right boxes while also including several mechanics that’ll help the game feel unique and even refreshing.

Bandai Namco recently gave Screen Rant the opportunity to play the first bloody chunk of The Blood of the Dawnwalker. Players will control Coen, the eldest son of a struggling family in a fantasy world set around the 1300s. They live in a village under the control of a deadly group of vampires, who demand a monthly subscription of blood while they murder anyone they deem weak or undesirable. It’s a situation that quickly builds the tension of Coen’s world into an explosive inciting incident that can work out in multiple ways depending on the player’s choices.

However, before the game truly begins, a dark and foreboding dream sequence provides a sneak peek at future events, but also a brilliant tease of the abilities and alternative combat styles the gameplay has to offer. The game’s trailer spills the beans that Coen gains vampiric powers, but before that happens, Coen must make several choices that can drastically change his and the people around him’s story for good.

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Before a particularly bad night happens to Coen and his family, players must explore their small town and accomplish side quests that directly affect the events that transpire that evening. Choosing specific missions will progress the day’s clock a specific amount, causing players the need to be choosy about what tasks they hope to accomplish before it’s too late, and risking an outcome that can alter the course of The Blood of the Dawnwalker’s branching narrative.

Almost as soon as Coen wakes up in the real world, the game begins to throw a series of choices that’ll determine the first set of missions. Those choices directly affect Coen’s family and in what condition they will be when they attend the evening tribute gathering for their inhuman lords. The ceremony goes south and so triggers a series of events that see Coen transformed, left to die, and his family imprisoned with 30 days to live before they are offered as sacrifices.

Much like Baldur’s Gate 3, each choice feels heavy with risk and encourages multiple playthroughs to uncover what the game’s well-written characters can get up to and how those choices will ripple into the story in unexpected ways. And the game’s narrative is not the only thing that will offer the player a bevy of choices.

While a lot of the story and branching conversations feel similar to games like Mass Effect, the action feels familiar to The Witcher 3’s bountiful third-person combat, Sekiro’s extremely satisfying parrying mechanics, and The Legend of Zelda’s directional swordplay. Fighting with weapons provided in the introduction allowed for rewarding close-quarters combat situations that could quickly grow out of hand if I wasn’t using my abilities. The Blood of the Dawnwalker’s combat does a great job of letting players know where attacks are coming from and providing the options to approach almost every fight in a variety of ways.

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Players are given an option of abilities to unlock from the game’s start, but an hour or two into the game, things expand further when Coen is given his own vampiric powers, and their own skill tree of surprising abilities. Many of Coen’s most useful traversal abilities can only be used at night, while other skills, including mysterious magical techniques, can only be used during the day.

Many of the game’s environments are specifically designed to be explored with both Coen’s night and day forms, with certain treacherous areas being far easier to explore in the vampire form. Scaling walls and teleporting short distances during the night may allow for easier infiltration, but there are many tasks that can only be accomplished during the day. This decision adds more incentive to revisit certain locations while, at the same time, adding another layer of strategy to the main plot’s 30-day time limit.

The Blood of Dawnwalker, a game by ex-CD Projekt Red Devs is an open-world RPG with a time limit, but it isn’t as restrictive as it sounds.

Combat can be extremely challenging at times, but it never feels impossible. Similar to Dark Souls, the game is not afraid to throw a late-game boss at the player at the tutorial’s end, with the expectation that they will lose. However, I was specific to ask the game’s Senior Quest Designer, Patryk Fijalkowski, if defeating the boss was possible. He not only confirmed that it was possible, but that in doing so would drastically alter the course of the game’s story.

The wide web of branching narrative plotlines and skill trees offered so many options that when speaking to multiple journalists and influencers at the preview event, almost no player had the same experience by the time the preview ended. Some players lost cherished family members; others unlocked abilities that seemed unthinkable in other playthroughs, proving that there is a lot of adventure waiting for players when the game releases on September 3, 2026.

Many open-world games suffer from problems like poor pacing and even induce anxiety by offering too much too fast, often killing any desire to explore. Thankfully, the way The Blood of the Dawnwalker onboards players into its world feels guided to avoid that issue. By the time that Coen was set free to freely explore in his quest to gain power and find allies, I was thoroughly invested in the plot, discovering The Blood of the Dawnwalker’s world, and exploring the depths of Coen’s many skill trees.

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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content

Bandai Namco Studios

Unreal Engine 5

Number of Players