Is The Blood of Dawnwalker made by the Witcher devs, and is it like The Witcher 3?
In part: its director made The Witcher 3. Whether it plays like it is another matter — the resemblance is either unmistakable, or the two games are alien to each other.
Made by
Rebel Wolves
A Warsaw studio. Not CD Projekt Red.
The Witcher link
Its director
The Witcher 3's game director co-founded the studio.
Owned by
Rebel Wolves
The studio keeps ownership of its new IP.
Who made it
Rebel Wolves developed it and Bandai Namco publishes it. The studio was founded by The Witcher 3's director, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, its CEO, Game Director and Co-Founder, and launched in early 2022. Many, or at least some, of the people behind The Witcher 3 worked on it, including its director. CD Projekt Red did not make it: Rebel Wolves retains full creative control and ownership of its new IP. Who paid for it, and how the team grew, is on the development budget page.
What reviewers say is the same
IGN
an RPG that “shares a ton of DNA with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt”, made by some of its former developers.
PC Gamer, before launch
“the resemblance is unmistakable, but tasteful”, and “far better than a clone”.
IGN, before launch
“like Geralt before him, Coen will need to play detective from time to time”, and quests carry complications, as you would expect from designers who worked on The Witcher.
GamesRadar
both games put a hero in a medieval high-fantasy world where dialogue choices shape the story you will experience.
Where the two games differ
Two differences come up again and again: the clock and the structure. Dawnwalker gives you 30 days, and there is no sequence of main quests: saving Coen's family is the only main quest and everything else is optional, a structure the developers tie to the old Fallout games. The clock is explained on the time system page, and the day and night page covers the human and vampire halves of the protagonist, arguably the game's best idea.
| Aspect | Dawnwalker | The Witcher 3 |
|---|---|---|
| A clock on the story | 30 days to save Coen's family, spent by quests and skills. | None. |
| A mount | None. | Roach. |
| Mini-games | None, the developers confirmed. | Something the Witcher franchise is known for. |
| Engine | Unreal Engine 5. | The in-house REDengine. |
| Combat | Directional swordplay, compared to Kingdom Come: Deliverance and For Honor. | Swordplay that was arguably a thorn in the game's side. |
Dawnwalker's map may be a deliberate step down in size, or larger than you would expect; the regions page has a rough area estimate. The mount question, and what you do instead of riding, is on the getting-around page.
Alike, or alien?
Against that “unmistakable” resemblance, GamesRadar, after finishing both, says “The two RPGs are mechanically and tonally alien to one another” and that anyone expecting Witcher 3-like combat “will be sorely disappointed”. The combat itself is either boring, as the Witcher 3’s could be, or quite good with a steep learning curve. Steam players go both ways on which game is better.
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