Here’s a doozy one. At Summer Game Fest 2026, Bandai Namco and Rebel Wolves decided to have a CGI trailer to promote not The Blood Of Dawnwalker, but the Dawnwalker franchise.
The little snippet shows a bleeding man on a chair waiting for their parcel delivery, which was a bag of type A blood. He’s a vampire! In the 21st century! And no, it’s not a Vampire: The Masquerade teaser, either.
Apparently, the vampire seen here is actually Coen, the protagonist of The Blood Of Dawnwalker. Future games in this supposed franchise (which bear in mind, doesn’t have a game released yet until this September) will see games set in different time periods, locations and cultures. Think Assassin’s Creed. In fact, the reaction by fans mirror of that of the original Assassin’s Creed—which at first revealed to be a period piece but before the game was released the meta-narrative of history and world-spanning saga was planted.
But if you’re thinking bigger, like Mass Effect big, don’t. In a press release, Rebel Wolves makes it clear that The Blood Of Dawnwalker will “end with a definitive and self-contained conclusion” based on player choices (no carry-over saves like the first Mass Effect trilogy did), and the game will remain a period piece set in the 14th century (no Assassin’s Creed meta-narrative as well) “free of cliffhangers or unresolved plot threads.”
“I have a feeling that today’s presentation may have surprised many of you who did not expect Coen’s saga to move into modern times,” said Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, Game Director and Co-Founder of Rebel Wolves, “However, I would like to emphasize that each installment in the series will be a standalone game with its own story, without narrative cliffhangers, unresolved plot threads, or time travel ideas,” he reassures.
Vampires can live a long life, after all, so there’s no need to have time travel as a plot device when Coen can just live through the centuries.
Hopefully Rebel Wolves, formed by ex-CD Projekt RED developers at its core, can truly make a franchise out of this. The last time Bandai Namco backed a new IP from a new studio established in West, despite its big ambitions with its star cast and multiple supplementary projects, didn’t pan well, for the franchise and the developers.
The Blood Of Dawnwalker will be out on September 3 for the PS5, PC (Steam) and Xbox Series X|S.