The Blood of Dawnwalkeris an upcoming dark fantasy vampire action RPG from Rebel Wolves, composed of formerCDPR developers who worked onThe Witcher 3andCyberpunk 2077. The core pitch has always been strong, but the recent gameplay reveal ofThe Blood of Dawnwalkeronly reinforced that.Witcher 3fans should be able to intuit how it plays based on that video alone, but all of it also reinforces a genuine open-world game. However, that gameplay reveal teased something that is equally exciting: Brencis’s Court.
InThe Blood of Dawnwalker, players take on the role of Coen who can walk around as a human during the day and stalk the night as a vampire. Players have 30 days to save their family from the clutches of Brencis, an ancient and powerful vampire who controls the fictional country of Vale Sangora. As Coen, players will use day and night to complete quests, but there are a lot of decisions to be made about who Coen becomes. As a vampire, he must feed, but players can choose to kill or just drain someone they feed on—or to feed on animals entirely instead. They are tasked with gathering allies and killing Brencis’s before storming his castle on a rescue mission, but players can do that on day one should they so choose. How successful that attempt may be is up in the air, but there’s a lot of freedom in thisupcoming vampire game.
Blood of Dawnwalker features directional combat akin to theKingdom Come: Deliverance games.
Blood of Dawnwalker: Coen Must Take Down Brencis’s Court
DuringBlood of Dawnwalker’s gameplay reveal, a developer gives players a look at the menu. For the most part, it is the standard RPG menu, but the developer never acknowledges one unique submenu seen at the top: Brencis’s Court. What this is exactly is not confirmed, but there are a few things based on the gameplay seen and past RPGs that could inform this feature.
First, it’s worth noting that the menu includes both a journal and a glossary. Basic RPG design tells us, based on this, that Brencis’s Court is not a collection of lore about his stronger allies because that would be allocated to the glossary. It could be that Brencis’s Court contains the main quests ofBlood of Dawnwalker, while other quests appear in the journal, but having two menu options for quests would also use up unnecessary menu space. As such, it’s clear there’s a strong indicator that separates the journal quest and Brencis’s Court ofvampires inBlood of Dawnwalker.
In the gameplay video, the developers are hunting one of Brencis’s allies, a powerful vampire known as Xanthe. They die in combat, further revealing that it is a little too early in the game to defeat Xanthe with their skills. They suggest players could wait and become powerful, find a way to Xanthe without their bodyguards, and otherwise offer alternative approaches to this quest. Assuming that Xanthe is one of the vampires of Brencis’s Court, as it would imply, this carries with it a couple of implications. It’s obvious, for example, thatBlood of Dawnwalkeris tapping into the best thatWitcher 3: Blood and Winehad to offer, but it is also defining itself in different ways. ShouldBlood of Dawnwalkerplayers choose to face Brencis as early as possible, for example, he has tons of allies he could call upon to swat them down. It also suggests that Brencis’s Court is something more akin to a nemesis system, if not simply a target system as seen inAssassin’s CreedRPGs.
Blood of Dawnwalker Would Benefit From a Nemesis System…
As many fans know, the WBMordorgames made the Nemesis system, and it quickly proved to be one of the most beloved gameplay systems in recent memory. In short, enemies would adapt to players, giving orcs unique personalities and relationships. This was randomly generated but had a personal impact on every playthrough. Even if players were not killing orcs, they would gain power, become more difficult, and rise through Sauron’s army. Swap orcs for vampires and Sauron’s army for Brencis’s Court, and it’s easy to see how this could be a nemesis system.
However, as many fans also know, this is unlikely.WB Games holds a patent on the Nemesis system, essentially barring any other developer from utilizing this system or one too similar. On top of that, Xanthe’s quest and takedown seem like a much more hand-crafted encounter than the Nemesis system offers.
That said, perhaps handcrafting these encounters, offering plenty of possible targets, and limiting the system based on thelimited days inBlood of Dawnwalkerwould escape the legalese of the patent. It is unlikely, but it is interesting. Even in its simplest form, however, Brencis’s Court seems more likely to be a target system akin to theAssassin’s Creedopen-world RPGs.
…But a Target System Still Fully Unleashes the Vampire Game
RecentAssassin’s Creedgameshave moved away from dedicated quests and implemented “targets” in their menus (in some form). Players would uncover the identities of these cultists and the sort to eventually find and assassinate them. This seems to be what Brencis’s Court is, in all likelihood. The journal may detail straightforward main quests, like storming Brencis’s castle and helping humans during the day, while Brencis’s Court offers various targets to track down, discover, research, and otherwise eliminate. It feels worth noting that many of theACRPGs have been criticized for this system, as it often gives less narrative weight to the various targets and undermines how important who they are is, but these are vampires at the end of the day. As evil manifest, without human intricacies, the system could easily work well for vampires.
Or, it could be that Brencis’s Court is something else altogether. Fans will just have to wait and see, but from the studio pedigree,Blood of Dawnwalker’s open-worldand role-playing approach, the time management, the available choices, and the appeal of a vampire game, Rebel Wolves' upcoming game is quickly climbing the charts as one of the most anticipated games of 2026.
