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This subsection of our review highlights the main graphical aspects of this game. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphic settings and the quality of development of the main visual aspects.

New action RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker requires a 64-bit operating system Windows 10 (or later) and runs on the DirectX 12 graphics API. The developers set strict standards: all configurations require 16 GB of RAM and a 60 GB SSD. The game makes extensive use of modern image scaling technologies, including DLSS, FSR, and XeSS.

These settings are designed to run the game at a base graphics level (1080p at 30 FPS, Low preset) using upscalers:

This configuration is aimed at the highest image quality (2160p at 60 FPS, preset Ultra) using upscalers:

Polish studio Rebel Wolves, founded by former key developers The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt и Cyberpunk 2077, is preparing to release its debut project, a large-scale role-playing game The Blood of DawnwalkerBandai Namco is the publisher. The full release for personal computers, as well as current-generation consoles PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, is scheduled for September 3, 2026.

The game takes place in an alternate, dark, fourteenth-century Europe, engulfed by plague, feudal wars, and an invasion of supernatural beings. The protagonist is a warrior named Cohen, who was forcibly transformed into a half-vampire—a so-called "Dawnwalker." To save his family from the clutches of an ancient vampire overlord, the hero must learn to control his inner bloodlust and harness his newfound dark powers.

The developers deliberately focused on creating a pure single-player story-driven adventure without microtransactions or online elements. One of the key features of the story campaign is a strict in-game timer: Cohen has only thirty in-game days to save his loved ones, forcing him to carefully plan every step, choosing routes, and completing side quests.

Gameplay framework The Blood of Dawnwalker Combines melee combat with melee weapons from a third-person perspective and the use of vampiric abilities. The combat system requires the player to constantly monitor their distance, timely dodges, parries, and combine swordplay with blood magic. The player can use night vision, instant teleportation dashes into the shadows, and vampiric claws to inflict critical damage on enemies.

A key element of the mechanics is the constant balance between the hero's humanity and his thirst for blood. Consuming the blood of defeated enemies restores strength and enhances combat spells, but excessive use of vampirism reduces sunlight resistance and alters the attitude of civilians, leading to merchants refusing to deal with the protagonist.

Open-world exploration is structured around the changing time of day. During the day, Cohen remains combat-ready, but his dark abilities are weakened, and exposure to direct sunlight causes periodic damage without the need for special potions or protective cloaks. At night, the hero regains his full power, opening access to hidden paths, secret crypts, and the lairs of powerful nocturnal monsters.

visual style The Blood of Dawnwalker embodies the atmosphere of the harsh and uncompromising European Middle Ages. The studio's artists meticulously recreated gloomy Gothic castles, plague-ravaged villages, dense, misty forests, and ancient pagan temples. Physically based rendering (PBR) realistically conveys the properties of materials: rust on chainmail, wet mud on dirt roads, the roughness of raw stone, and wood darkened by time.

The lighting system plays a fundamental role in shaping the visuals. The contrast between the dim daylight filtering through leaden clouds and the deep darkness of the nighttime forests creates a constant sense of danger. Torches on the fortress walls, moonlight, and the crimson flashes of blood magic act as dynamic light sources, casting soft shadows across the complex geometry of the environment.

Technological basis The Blood of Dawnwalker the graphics engine appears Unreal Engine 5The Nanite virtualized geometry system is used to render the high-polygon open-world environment. It allows for rendering millions of terrain polygons, ruined fortress walls, and dense vegetation without any visible level-of-detail loading when moving the camera at high speed.

The built-in Lumen module handles global illumination and real-time reflection calculations. The technology accurately processes indirect light from fires, lanterns, and the moon, effectively flooding the corridors of medieval crypts and halls. The Chaos physics module ensures the destructibility of wooden barriers, bridges, and light cover during large-scale boss battles.

The engine is tuned for seamless streaming of large-scale environments, eliminating loading screens when entering dungeons or large fortified cities. The 3D audio engine creates a deep soundscape: the echo of footsteps in empty stone halls, the rustle of wind in the treetops, and the howls of nocturnal creatures are precisely positioned in space, helping the player detect threats early.

At the default low graphics settings, the engine significantly reduces image quality to maintain a stable frame rate. Environmental texture resolution is reduced, making equipment, weapons, and dark, gothic environments appear less crisp, while lighting and shadows become simple and flat. Draw distance is severely limited, causing landscape objects and enemies to load directly in front of the camera. The density of special effects, magic, and atmospheric fog is minimized.

When going to settings Ultra The visuals are completely transformed and become incredibly detailed. Proper soft shadows and complex global illumination appear, realistically interacting with the game's dark world, armor, and weather conditions. The draw distance is maximized, so large landscape elements on the horizon are instantly visible without any sudden loading. Vampire ability effects, blood particles, volumetric lighting, and dynamic reflections are rendered in high resolution without any limitations.

Below you'll find a hardware table kindly provided by our sponsors: GIGABYTE , ASUS , Kingston , and DeepCool . It lists the motherboards, graphics cards, memory modules, and cooling systems used in the benchmarks, as well as the current operating system and driver configurations.

All video cards were benchmarked at maximum graphics quality using MSI Afterburner. The purpose of benchmarks is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. Below is a video of a benchmarked segment from the game:

Our graphics cards were benchmarked at separate screen resolutions of 1920×1080, 2560×1440, and 3840×2160 with maximum graphics settings in native mode, with DLSS/FSR in quality mode, and with frame rates enabled. The RTX 50 benchmarked with DLSS 6X frame rates, the RTX 40 benchmarked with DLSS 2X frame rates, and the RTX 20/30 and AMD graphics cards benchmarked with FSR 2X frame rates.

In the video card benchmarks, the resolution 1920x1080 is selected by default, other resolutions are added and removed manually. You can also remove and add any video card positions. You can also select any of our benchmark processors from the list in the drop-down menu, comparing its performance with the given video card benchmarks (the most productive solution is selected by default). The test is carried out on the most productive one in this game CPU and scales to other processors, taking into account their benchmarks on NVIDIA and AMD video cards.

Testing of the video memory consumed by the game was carried out by the MSI Afterburner program. The results on video cards from AMD and NVIDIA at separate screen resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 with different anti-aliasing settings were taken as an indicator. By default, the most current solutions are displayed in the graph. Other video cards are added and removed from the graph at the reader's request.

Testing was conducted at a resolution of 1920x1080. You can add or remove any processor entry in the processor benchmarks. You can also select any graphics card to be benchmarked from the drop-down menu and compare its performance with the provided processor benchmark results (the most powerful NVIDIA solution is selected by default). Testing is performed on the most powerful NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards and scales down to lower-end models.

The indicator was taken as all used RAM. The RAM test on the all system was conducted on various video cards without launching third-party applications (browsers, etc.). In the graphics, you can add and remove any resolutions and video cards as desired.

Using our benchmark results or creating charts based on them requires an active indexed link to our resource. We monitor even changed data and in case of violation we will submit a blocking request through Google without warning.