The Blood of Dawnwalker was reportedly developed with a budget of approximately $40 million after NetEase invested in developer Rebel Wolves. The figure comes from a new Bloomberg report examining the creation of the vampire action RPG, which launched earlier this month on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. NetEase acquired a 26% stake in Rebel Wolves and provided the studio with the development funding after founder Konrad Tomaszkiewicz initially financed the project himself.
According to the report, Tomaszkiewicz began assembling the studio and developing the concept in 2022, funding Rebel Wolves during its first year while the team created a pitch document, hired staff and built a prototype. NetEase came aboard later that year, taking its minority stake and supplying the $40 million production budget. Rebel Wolves then continued expanding through 2023 before full production began toward the end of that year.
The budget is notable because The Blood of Dawnwalker was built as a large-scale open-world action RPG rather than a smaller indie project. Rebel Wolves reportedly had around 90 employees in 2024 before growing to approximately 160 people by the time of release. Tomaszkiewicz has said the studio initially hoped to keep its headcount lower, but the scope of development ultimately required a larger team.
Bandai Namco Entertainment later joined the project as publisher, meaning the reported $40 million figure should not necessarily be interpreted as the complete amount spent bringing the game to market. Development budgets generally do not include every marketing, distribution and publishing expense, and no comprehensive all-in cost has been disclosed. The figure instead represents the development funding associated with NetEase’s investment in Rebel Wolves.
The Blood of Dawnwalker launched on September 3 after more than four years of development. Built in Unreal Engine 5, the game follows Coen, a young man who is human by day and vampire by night, through the fictional Carpathian region of Vale Sangora. Its structure combines open-world exploration, narrative choices and a time-based progression system that limits how many activities can be completed during a single playthrough.
Rebel Wolves’ approach was heavily influenced by a desire to control scope rather than continually redesign the game’s foundations. Tomaszkiewicz told Bloomberg that the team deliberately tried to preserve the major gameplay pillars established during its original pitch, avoiding fundamental changes that could create wider production problems. That philosophy helped the studio complete the project without a budget approaching the hundreds of millions associated with some of the industry’s largest productions.
The game has also started strongly commercially. The Blood of Dawnwalker reached the top of Steam’s paid sellers chart shortly after launch, while subsequent reports indicated it passed one million copies sold during its opening period. The combination of that early sales performance and the newly reported $40 million development budget offers additional context for the scale at which Rebel Wolves built its first game.
The studio has already made clear that Dawnwalker is intended to continue beyond its debut entry. Rebel Wolves has begun recruiting for the next chapter in the Dawnwalker saga, while earlier official material described plans for future stories spanning different locations, historical periods and cultures. A teaser released before launch even showed Coen in a modern-day setting, hinting at the longer-term direction of the series.
The Blood of Dawnwalker is currently available on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. While neither Rebel Wolves nor NetEase has publicly issued a standalone statement confirming the exact production budget, Bloomberg’s reporting places the game’s development funding at $40 million, providing a clearer picture of how the studio financed its debut RPG and the scale at which the project was built.
