Rebel Wolves

Oh, interesting.

Rebel Wolves, which is a Creators of the Blood of Don Walker that I've been playing quite a bit.

This studio was founded in 2022 by Conrad... thomas skowitz director of the witcher 3 with a few other former cd project red developers brand new ip brand new game came out september 3rd um over 1 million copies sold in the first few days about 85 an open critic supposedly 40 to 45 million dollars to make which is crazy.

Also done very cheaply and a game's great.

Yeah.

So I guess the first thing is, I mentioned in the pre-show, Witcher 3, the studio behind Don Walker, Rebel Wolves, was founded by the director of The Witcher 3, who left CD Projekt Red and brought a bunch of CD Projekt people with him.

So I remember I previewed this game for Kotaku in July.

And when I previewed it, I remember saying at the time that this is kind of the first Witcher-like game.

And I'm Clint Jones.

And today, we're talking about Blood of Dawnwalker, developed by Rebel Wolves and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment.

It was released for PS5, Xbox Series S and X, and PS4.

windows in 2026 and we'll be talking spoilers so heads up if you're sensitive to that and clint i know this one has been on your radar for a while and when you told me about it i simply had to say that sounds vaguely familiar why should i be excited

Like, I would say like, you know, that there is certainly a pedigree behind this developer.

You know, Konrad Tomiskiewicz, the director of Witcher 3, Wild Hunt, as well as the head of production for Cyberpunk 2077, left CD Projekt to found a studio to make this game.

Rebel Wolves, you know, a lot of CD Projekt folks came along with him, including, you know, their art director, one of their narrative designers, Jakub Zamelek.

And, you know, I don't know about you, but I remember that series for very good narratives in their quest design and things of that nature.

I did last week when we were talking about it, where it's like, to your point, Brian, it's like, remember, we got Exodus, right? I know The Expanse, right, is another one that's also, you know, book and show, but, you know, is taking that same DNA and, you know, you're having writers from Fate of the Old Republic.

know that that was previously old republic and all that stuff you know you're seeing these people move on to different studios um like rebel wolves for example from cd project and create their own things and i think what we're in because we've we've been here for so long right is we haven't really seen firsthand because i think we were we were wee but small children during the times of like the nineties, early nineties.

But like, you're seeing what's happening, which is like the life cycle of a, of a studio.

They, they, they hit their pinnacle.

Right.

And I think you're seeing that with like CD project in, you know, Hell, CD Projekt and BioWare, right? BioWare leaves, CD Projekt rises.

And as they rise, you see, you know, studios like Rebel Wolves kick up.

And I think, Ryan, one of the things that you noted here, which is like... yeah that number is huge to us huge failure to ea like you know like we talk about uh expedition 33 games sold you know i think five million uh units in the first year that's huge for kepler that's huge for that studio but would that that that would be the same type of failure if it was a mass effect five you know what i mean with that type of level of budget so yeah i don't know it hurts light Come on, give me some good news

So I'll maybe just give them a couple of days.

On a similar note, another game I haven't played yet, but I really want to, was The Blood of Dawnwalker from Rebel Wolves.

Oh, yeah.

uh cdpr people and i was literally about to boot it up earlier today after i beat modern warfare 4 and then i saw the news about how there's going to be a massive patch later in october that fixes like 1200 issues or something it's like okay you know what i've waited this long i'll just wait another week that's fine

And I think I really love the small dev budget feel of that, where it's like, we are master storytellers.

We worked on Witcher 3 and we've done lots of stuff at CDPR, broke away, formed Rebel Wolves.

What are our strengths? Character writing, you know, like atmosphere, whatever.

How do we make this work in a smaller landmass? And for me, who's not sick of open world stuff, but yeah, I like that.

Mm-hmm.

Blood of the Dawnwalker got a 1.1 update from Bandai Namco and Rebel Wolves.

It's the first major post-launch update for Blood of the Dawnwalker.

It's an option to reset skill points, a new difficulty option, more subtitle settings, and animal petting, the most important thing you can add.