Rebel Wolves showed us a bit more gameplay of The Blood of the Dawnwalker. Here’s a summary of the most important points.
Revealing points of interest
The way this works is basically the same as in games like Assassin’s Creed or Crimson Desert. You climb to a point that’s high on the map, and it lets you see the nearby points of interest. However, there is a small change in The Blood of Dawnwalker.
After looking at a new point of interest, Coen will say a brief sentence to give context to each place. Things like the creatures that are known to wander there, or the allegiance of a settlement.
There are multiple things you can find. Enemy groups, shrines that are used for fast travel, or quest objectives. These points can be tracked with the compass located at the top of the screen. No need to open the map to check and mark every point of interest.
Restoring shrines
As mentioned above, shrines become fast travel points after being unlocked. However, these work differently from your standard fast travel point. You can’t simply interact with it and unlock it.
It involves doing a small quest, similar to how you can obtain some Abyss Artifacts in Crimson Desert. In the video, we see that Coen must kill a few soldiers and loot a chest to find the shrine’s “missing heart”. Only then can he go back to the shrine to restore it and unlock it as a fast travel point.
Shrines also serve as the place where you can spend your experience points to learn new perks (abilities).
Unlocking new perks
This system is similar to what most skill trees do. You spend a point to unlock a new ability. Simple, right? Well, yes and no. This game will make it extremely clear that time is the most important resource.
For better or worse, perks require that you spend some time to unlock them, in addition to the skill points. At least those shown in the video. We’ll have to think carefully about how to create our own build in order to spend our resources efficiently.
My only concern with this is that it can impact how much players can/want to experiment with these perks.
Corruption level
We already know that Coen can feed on both animals and humans. Doing so restores your vitality, but it also increases Coen’s corruption. Higher corruption means that you are closer to becoming a “full” vampire. Coen earns more vampiric perks, but it also comes with the risk of him losing control around human allies.
No horse for Coen
Coen won’t have access to a horse to travel across the Vale of Sangora. Instead, he’ll be able to move fast by his own means. To travel quickly during the day, Coen can unlock a hex called Mercurial Fervour. The video never specifies what a ” hex” is or how different it is from a regular perk, so we’ll have to wait more to learn about it.
To travel during nighttime, Coen can turn into a black wolf by learning a perk early in the game. This is very exciting for us at VULKK because, for those unaware, “vulkk” is the Bulgarian word for wolf.
Infamy system
This is basically a reputation system. Our infamy is going to reflect how much we are affecting Brencis’ plans. However, Brencis will also act accordingly. The higher your infamy, the harder it’ll be to do some things due to how alert the enemy will be.
We can also see the level of anger Ambrus, Xanthe, or Bakir have towards Coen. When this hits the maximum level, a new quest tied to the respective vampire will become available. This will have a direct impact on the story and our confrontation with Brencis.
Inventory
While the inventory isn’t addressed directly, the following image gives us a good idea of what to expect. I played the video slowly to check what type of items Coen can carry. The list includes: Weaponry, Armour, Accessories, Usables, Ingredients, Books, Recipes, and four more types that weren’t shown in the video.
Coen can carry up to 300 items and have two presets. With the amount of perks, I doubt that we’ll be able to equip two different gear sets for different builds, but I don’t see any other explanation, considering that the developers have not mentioned the inclusion of a transmog feature at any given point.
While this livestream answered some questions, it also raised a lot more that must be answered before launch so players can make an informed decision about whether or not this game is for them.
This was just a brief summary of the gameplay overview. You can see everything revealed in the Road to Launch video released by the game’s official YouTube channel.
Make sure to check the game’s Editions and PC Requirements.
The Blood of Dawnwalker: Release Date and Story Trailer
