In the event you thought Bloodlines 2 lacked chew, keep in mind that The Witcher 3's director left CD Projekt to make a vampire RPG, and it's out subsequent 12 months
2025 lastly introduced us Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines 2, however whether or not you appreciated or loathed The Chinese language Room’s follow-up to Troika’s wildly formidable and deeply flawed RPG, it is secure to say that it wasn’t the follow-up most followers anticipated.
On a private degree, what I needed from Bloodlines 2 was principally ‘Bloodlines 1, however fastened’, an RPG that took all of the wild, unconstrained ambition of the unique and introduced it as much as trendy requirements with a brand new story and exploratory house on high. But whereas Bloodlines 2 had its deserves—like its good Malkavian detective companion Fabien—it was mechanically a lot less complicated than Troika’s sport, whereas additionally missing significant side-quests and any actual sense of character development.
And get this, Tomaszkiewicz left the studio to make Dawnwalker as a result of he believed it too formidable to make there: “We had loopy concepts,” he informed PC Gamer again in January. ” We knew that, you already know, if we needed to make them, we wanted to open our personal studio, as a result of it will be laborious to persuade any huge firm—you already know, with non-IP—to vary, and do one thing new, and do one thing loopy. Truly, it’s dangerous, as a result of we’re doing a little options that are new.”
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What are these new concepts? Effectively, the Blood of Dawnwalker sees you play as Coen, a half-human, half-vampire who seeks vengeance on a gaggle of highly effective vampires who’ve kidnapped his household and brought management of a valley within the Carpathian Mountains. The way you go about it will rely closely on time, a key useful resource in The Blood of Dawnwalker in additional methods than one.
For starters, your talents differ relying on whether or not it is day or evening. Within the daytime, Coen’s fights extra like a human, although he can nonetheless dabble in magic by means of the facility of hexes. At evening, his vampire powers come to the fore, letting him rip his enemies aside together with his claws.
However time additionally performs into the narrative, with totally different quest paths showing relying on whether or not you deal with goals by day or evening, ensuing within the story transferring ahead in diverging methods. This may have main implications for the story, presumably the destiny of main characters. Even when it does not, Insurgent Wolves need to allow you to kill vital NPCs anyway, within the custom of older RPGs like Morrowind.
Whereas its DNA is understandably rooted extra in The Witcher 3 than Bloodlines’, er, bloodline, I will fortunately take a Witcher-adjacent RPG with a little bit additional chew. There isn’t any laborious launch date for The Blood of Dawnwalker but, nevertheless it’s anticipated to launch subsequent 12 months.