Speaking about upcoming RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker, game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz spoke about the kind of story the developers at Rebel Wolves wants to tell with the game. In an interview with PCGamer, Tomaszkiewicz spoke about the game’s protagonist Coen, and how he will help the studio tell a new kind of story.
In the interview, Tomaszkiewicz spoke about how Coen is a new type of vampire that wouldn’t be as overpowered as, for example, a superhero. Rather, Coen will have to rely on his wits along with his fighting capabilities to survive.
“I felt that I wanted to do a game which would not be a game about, like, a normal, let’s say superhero, which we know from Marvel movies,” says Tomaszkiewicz. “It’s hard to do those stories because you are [just] stronger and stronger and stronger. [So] I searched for an idea for the hero, which would be near the ground—or grounded—and needed to solve things in a different way. But, also, I wanted to give some kind of superhero to the players.”
This is essentially why, in The Blood of Dawnwalker, Coen will spend periods of the game without his vampiric abilities. Rather, Coen will be able to tap into his vampire powers during night time, but will have to spend the day with all of the weaknesses that being a human entails.
“That’s why I designed a protagonist who, in the day, is a human, with all the weaknesses of a human being,” he explained. “[However], at night, you are a vampire, which is stronger and faster, and you have better abilities and supernatural skills. It’s somehow interesting, this duality of the hero, which we know from Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, for example. It’s something in pop culture that is well known and wasn’t yet explored in games. It gives you a different layer to those non-realities, and I think it would be quite interesting because nobody yet has done that. And we will see how people will like it.”
The studio had also previously revealed that magic present in the world of The Blood of Dawnwalker will be more subdued than what players might be used to seeing from fantasy games. Rather than fireballs and lightning bolts, the magic in The Blood of Dawnwalker will instead be more about manipulation and summonings.
This also ties in the studio previously stating that Coen wouldn’t be an overpowered protagonist. During a Twitch stream, Tomaszkiewicz had first mentioned that, rather than being a superhero, Coen would instead be a young guy who can get emotional at times. Tomaszkiewicz describes Coen as a fun character to write and flesh out.
The Blood of Dawnwalker will be coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The game doesn’t yet have a release date, however. In the mean time, check out the character description for Coen that the studio previously provided, along with revealing that the narrative time limit in the game will not affect players that would like to spend more time exploring the world and doing optional side-objectives.