The Blood of Dawnwalker Sold a Million Copies, Then Steam Found the Stutter

What it is

The Blood of Dawnwalker is an open-world dark fantasy action RPG set in 14th-century Europe. You play Coen, a man cursed to be human by day and a vampire by night, racing against a countdown to save his family before time runs out. It's made by Rebel Wolves, a Warsaw studio founded by Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who was game director on The Witcher 3, and staffed with a lot of other ex-CD Projekt Red people, so the Witcher comparisons were inevitable the moment it was announced.

The big number

Rebel Wolves and publisher Bandai Namco announced the game sold over a million copies worldwide within three days of its September 3 launch on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. That's a genuinely strong debut for a brand new full-price IP with no existing fanbase to lean on, and it's pushed the game to the top of Steam's best-seller charts.

Critics liked it more than players did

Reviews landed around 84 on Metacritic, with praise going to the worldbuilding and the way choices ripple through the story, and some mild disappointment that the day/night vampire mechanic doesn't get pushed as far as it could. Steam's own user score currently sits at Very Positive, but a decent chunk of the less glowing reviews are about performance rather than the writing: stuttering and crashes even on recommended specs, rough windowed/borderless support, no HDR, and a bumpy time on handhelds. Rebel Wolves has already shipped a couple of hotfixes and says bigger optimization work is coming.

The time limit debate

One quirky side story: the game's central hook is that Coen has a limited number of in-game days to save his family, and some players found that stressful enough that modders have already released tools to remove it entirely. Worth knowing going in if deadlines make you anxious rather than excited.

Who it's for: if you want a story-heavy, choice-driven RPG with real Witcher pedigree and don't mind waiting a patch or two for your rig to run it smoothly, Dawnwalker is very much worth a look.