The Blood of Dawnwalker is about to get its most significant update since launching in early September. Update 1.1, planned for next week, introduces a full ability respec, a reworked Story mode, and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to pet dogs and cats.
Rebel Wolves, the studio founded by former CD Projekt Red leads behind The Witcher 3, announced the patch details on social media this week. The headline addition is the Draught of Mind Rebirth, a consumable item that lets players forget every ability they have learned across the game’s three skill trees, Swordmastery, Witchcraft, and Vampirism, and reinvest that time into a different build entirely.
A Second Chance for Your Build
Until now, every skill point spent in The Blood of Dawnwalker has been permanent. Players who committed to a particular combat style early on had no way to experiment with alternatives without starting a fresh playthrough. The Draught of Mind Rebirth changes that, offering a proper respec option for the first time.
Rebel Wolves has not yet confirmed how players will obtain the draught or whether it carries a cost. Given the game’s time-limiting structure, where in-game actions consume days on a calendar, it seems likely that the respec will require some investment beyond simply drinking a potion.
Directional petting: In a move that has delighted the game’s community, Rebel Wolves is adapting the combat system’s directional inputs for animal interaction. The studio describes it as “directional animal petting”, because apparently rubbing a dog requires the same mechanical depth as parrying a sword strike.
Five Difficulty Levels Now
The update also restructures the game’s difficulty options. The existing Story mode will be renamed Forgiving, and a brand-new Story mode, sitting below it, will add further combat assistance for players who want to focus on the narrative without wrestling with the directional combat system.
The Blood of Dawnwalker’s combat has been a talking point since launch. Unlike most action RPGs, it uses directional inputs for both attacking and defending, requiring players to manage angles of approach much like in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The new Story mode acknowledges that not everyone wants that level of mechanical engagement, and that is perfectly fine.
Game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz discussed these changes with Eurogamer last month, confirming that the team had been listening to player feedback about difficulty.
Over 1,100 Fixes and Improvements
Beyond the headline features, Update 1.1 brings a substantial list of technical changes. Frame generation technology receives an update with dedicated settings, combat targeting and camera animations are adjusted, and traversal using Shadowstep and Planeshift abilities should feel more responsive when attaching to surfaces.
Players on Steam in Japan will also see blood and gore uncensored in their version of the game, and subtitle options expand to include larger font sizes and subtitles for every line of dialogue.
The full patch notes list more than 1,100 individual improvements and fixes, though Rebel Wolves has not published the complete breakdown yet.
When Does It Arrive?
Rebel Wolves says Update 1.1 is planned for the week beginning 19 October, but no specific day or time has been confirmed. The studio has also not said whether the patch will land on all platforms simultaneously. The Blood of Dawnwalker is available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
The game launched on 3 September to generally positive reviews, with Eurogamer awarding it four stars. Critics praised its novel time-limiting structure and freeform approach to quests, though the directional combat proved divisive among players accustomed to more traditional action RPG mechanics.
With a respec option now on the horizon and a new difficulty tier for those who found the combat too demanding, Update 1.1 looks like a meaningful response to player feedback. Whether it can bring back players who bounced off the game at launch, or convert those still on the fence, remains to be seen.
