Bandai Namco Entertainment and Rebel Wolves’ upcoming action role-playing game, The Blood Of Dawnwalker, has a 30-day in-game time limit.
Rebel Wolves Creative Director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz has revealed that once the prologue concludes in The Blood Of Dawnwalker, players will have a 30-day time limit to rescue protagonist Coen’s family from Brencis, a centuries-old vampire and former Roman senator, and his inner circle. This key mechanic is what we the development team calls “narrative sandbox”.
The developer further mentioned that only major decisions or actions advance the in-game clock, and The Blood Of Dawnwalker clearly communicates how much time each choice consumes. Simply traveling the open world does not affect the timer, allowing exploration without constant time pressure. Here, time functions less like a strict countdown and more like a strategic resource.
According to Tomaszkiewicz, the mechanic’s novelty lies in the player’s freedom to shape the narrative. Storylines can be pursued in any order, ignored, or even missed entirely. Characters can live or die based on the player’s decisions, with their presence, or absence, shifting the direction of events. Multiple solutions often exist for the same objective, and even refusing to act has consequences that the world recognizes and adapts to. The developer claimed that this creates a highly reactive narrative framework that rewards experimentation and ensures that no two playthroughs unfold in the same manner.
The Blood Of Dawnwalker puts players in the role of Coen, an individual struggling with silver poisoning and a vampiric curse. Instead of fully turning into a vampire, Coen lives in both states: human by day, vampire by night. This dual existence plays an important role during gameplay, as each form provides its own distinct set of abilities. Most missions can be tackled during either time of day, but the outcomes and experiences differ dramatically depending on when they are attempted.
The Blood Of Dawnwalker is scheduled to release for the PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X|S in 2026.
