Rebel Wolves is finally ready to reveal The Blood of Dawnwalker.
So, you may have already forgotten this. But we reported on Dawnwalker at the start of this year, as Polish game studio Rebel Wolves only announced themselves to the publish that recently. The studio was founded by The Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, and like CD Projekt RED, is based in Poland.
At the time, the studio touted an investment from NetEase, but as we know today, Rebel Wolves got Bandai Namco on board as global publisher for the title.
And with that, the game’s name literally just changed to The Blood of Dawnwalker, alongside this game description:
“Dawnwalker is described as a “dark fantasy narrative sandbox, AAA action RPG” set in medieval Europe. It is built on Unreal Engine 5. More information about the game will be announced in “the coming months.”
That was from a press release from the other day. Today, Gematsu reported on a new reveal event coming for the game this January 13, 2025 at 1:00 p.m. PT / 4:00 p.m. ET. The event seems to be exclusive on Twitch, though we of course expect a YouTube video and other press releases to come after the fact.
Bandai Namco was once best known as the home of arcade standouts like Ridge Racer, Tekken, and Pac-Man, but they have discreetly been a big believer in Western fantasy themed games. The most famous of that would be their long-standing work publishing From Software games like Elden Ring. For that swing, they also had a miss in this year’s Unknown 9: Awakening.
But for now, it seems that they are still willing to take those big bets, with the hope for big returns. And perhaps they had ample motivation for this move, as their partner From Software may get caught up in Sony’s potential acquisition of From Software’s parent company, Kadokawa.
As for right now, it’s too early to conclude that Sony would finalize this acquisition, and then proceed to make From Software games Sony exclusives. Sony may be better off continuing to keep some From Software titles multiplatform and retain some exclusives for themselves. But Bandai Namco definitely could now wait to see how things pan out before they arranged for a backup plan.
If Bandai Namco end up acquiring for themselves their own The Witcher-like action RPG franchise, they may not come out of such a deal in the lurch after all. But we’ll have to wait until January to see what Rebel Wolves really has planned.
In the meantime, you can watch the announcement trailer below.
