The Blood of Dawnwalker is the single-player RPG of the fall that nobody budgeted for, and its first real patch is about letting more people finish it.
## What's in the patch Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz walked Eurogamer through it (via Kotaku). The game ships with four difficulties, Story, Fair, Challenging and Duelist, but "Story" still makes you fight. So the current Story gets renamed and a new Story mode goes in "for people who don't want to experience the combat." Open question Kotaku raises: the game's whole loop is the vampire lords sending goons and checkpoints at you the more you annoy them. What happens to that when combat is off?
Two combat fixes for everyone else. Stunning an enemy currently auto-switches your target; after the patch you stay locked on, and it takes three hits to break a stun. And escaping: "We're working on escaping from combat and running in combat and it will be a big change for people." Anyone who's been pinned on geometry by a mob knows why that line matters.
## New Game+ "There is a chance but I don't want to speak about it yet," Tomaszkiewicz said. "If I tell you more, they will kill me." Read that as yes, not yet. The patch itself is targeted at early October.
## The $40 million part Bloomberg reported last week that NetEase funded the game with about $40 million for a 26 percent stake in Rebel Wolves, the Warsaw studio founded by Witcher 3 director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz and other CD Projekt alumni. Headcount is 160. The game passed 1 million sold in the busiest window of the year, and it did that by refusing to change the pitch: a day-night cycle that flips your vampire powers, and a story timer that stops you from seeing everything in one run. "The foundations right now are the same as they were in the pitch deck." (Kotaku)
## Why this is the lane Wolverine cost Sony a bundle and got 6s. Dawnwalker cost less than a Marvel marketing line and is in the Game of the Year conversation. Small team, one idea, no committee. That's a beat tape philosophy, and it's winning on a console near you.
## Sources - The Blood of Dawnwalker's first big patch will add an easier difficulty that eliminates combat — Kotaku, Sept. 21, 2026 - Blood of Dawnwalker difficulty and combat patch update — Eurogamer, Sept. 21, 2026 - Blood of Dawnwalker became a dark-horse GOTY contender on just a $40 million budget — Kotaku, Sept. 18, 2026

