Eurogamer has published a hands-on preview of The Blood of Dawnwalker, the debut game from Rebel Wolves, a studio led by former Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz alongside several ex-CD Projekt Red developers. After four hours with the vampire-themed role-playing game, the writer judges it a promising contender to become 2026's breakout RPG, praising its distinctive time-limit mechanic, its dramatic storytelling and its more layered approach to combat.

Players take on Coen, a partially turned vampire with 30 in-game days and nights to rescue his family in the Carpathian-set Vale of Sangora. Time is not spent by exploring but by advancing quests, forcing players to choose what to pursue and leave undone; in the prologue, the writer used up half the time-bar on a single quest involving a healer named Anca and a possible romance, and consequently failed to save his mother or another villager, whereas other players made different choices with different outcomes. Combat adds directional attacks and parries with a shield indicator showing incoming hits, rewarding well-timed counters, plus vampire weapon sets switching between claws and a sword, though the writer found it fiddly at first.