Save-game carry-overs and time-leaping sequels: medieval vampire RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker has some bold ideas for the future
Developer Rebel Wolves and publisher Bandai Namco have confirmed that The Blood of Dawnwalker, a medieval vampire RPG, will let players carry save data forward into future instalments of the series. Game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz said the studio always envisaged the game as the start of a multi-title saga, designing story hooks and consequences from the outset with sequels in mind, an approach reminiscent of BioWare's Mass Effect trilogy, though notably one BioWare never repeated due to the complexity of tracking player choices across games.
The series follows Coen, a half-human, half-vampire protagonist who, unlike a typical human hero, can live for centuries, appearing in a Summer Game Fest trailer roughly 600 years after the first game's 14th-century setting. Tomaszkiewicz confirmed that this does not mean future games will be set in the present day; instead, the saga will leap across different historical periods and cultures, an approach he compared loosely to Assassin's Creed, aiming to keep each new entry feeling fresh while maintaining a consistent overarching story.
In short
- Blood of Dawnwalker saves will carry over into future sequels
- Approach echoes Mass Effect's choice-and-consequence save system
- Series will leap across centuries and cultures, not just modern day
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The case for
This approach exemplifies genuine respect for player agency and narrative consequence, creating investment across a saga where meaningful choices persist. By featuring an immortal protagonist navigating different historical periods, developers can maintain thematic and narrative cohesion whilst keeping each instalment creatively distinct and culturally fresh, allowing the series to achieve storytelling ambitions that single-game experiences cannot reach.
The case against
Whilst thematically compelling, this approach carries substantial technical and creative risks that industry experience has demonstrated are genuinely prohibitive, as maintaining save compatibility, narrative consistency, and development vision across multiple generations—often with different teams—proves extraordinarily complex. New players face significant barriers when previous saves are unavailable, and committing to overarching continuity across disparate historical periods risks subordinating the individual quality and design focus of each game to serve broader saga continuity.
Explained simply
The Blood of Dawnwalker is a medieval vampire role-playing game being developed by Rebel Wolves and published by Bandai Namco. The studio has confirmed that the game will allow players to carry their save data into future sequels, meaning your choices and actions in one game could shape events in the next.
The game follows Coen, a half-human, half-vampire protagonist who, unlike ordinary humans, can live for centuries. This uncommon lifespan allows him to appear in future games set hundreds of years after the first game, enabling the series to span different time periods whilst maintaining the same central character.
The developers always intended the game as the start of a connected multi-part saga and built the story with sequels in mind from the beginning. Rather than setting each new game in progressively modern times, the series will jump across different historical periods and cultures, similar to how Assassin's Creed works, allowing each instalment to feel distinct whilst remaining part of one overarching story.
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