Revision 15

Day Combat

During the day, Coen fights as a human. His primary weapon is Peregrini Aurorae, a skill learned from his father, a former mercenary who trained him from a young age. Several classes of sword exist, short, long and great, each affecting how fast he attacks, and axes and other weapons can be picked up out in the world. There are still no bows, crossbows, or alternative ranged weapons. Combat is melee-focused with a directional system.

The directional system works across four angles: up, down, left, and right. Players choose a direction to swing and a direction to block. Enemies telegraph their attacks, and reading their movements correctly lets you strike where they can't parry. Successful attacks, blocks, and parries build activation charges.

Activation charges power two things: Hex Magic abilities and execution moves. Hexes include Burning Blood (damage over time), Feral Mind (forces enemies to attack their allies), and Compel Soul (speak with the dead). Execution moves like Artery Strike deal heavy finishing damage. Players start with three ability slots, expandable through progression. You earn charges by fighting well, which creates a loop where offense enables bigger offense.

Coen can also fight barehanded. Punches and blocks follow the same directional system as sword combat.

Omniblock Mode

For players who find the directional system too demanding, an omniblock/omniattack mode is available. This removes the need to choose a direction. Attacks and blocks work in all directions automatically. The trade-off is higher stamina consumption. The developers added this based on community feedback, keeping the directional system as the intended experience while offering an accessible alternative.

Night Combat

At night, Coen fights with claws instead of a sword. The pace is faster and more aggressive. His claws can tear through enemy armor, and dismemberment is present, limbs come off. His Vampiric Powers add new options:

Night combat ties into stealth. Coen must avoid detection by guards and civilians while in vampire form. Getting spotted can escalate into fights you're not ready for, or trigger narrative consequences.

Acquiring vampire powers

Coen obtains new vampire abilities by draining other vampires. Each vampire has distinct powers, and defeating them lets Coen absorb what they had. Xanthe's Blood Whips, for example, are acquired this way. This ties character progression to the enemies you choose to fight rather than a generic upgrade menu.

Blood craving in combat

The Blood Craving system connects directly to fighting. As Coen takes damage, his hunger increases. At night, the health bar also represents his hunger level. Biting enemies serves the dual purpose of healing and managing the craving meter. If craving reaches critical levels, Coen can involuntarily drain NPCs, including story-critical characters.

Feeding can be partial (knocking victims unconscious) or total (killing them). The choice between restraint and efficiency creates a persistent tension during and between fights.

Named Abilities

A handful of combat abilities are confirmed by name along with what they do.

Difficulty and Accessibility

At easier difficulties, enemy attack animations slow down to give players more reaction time. This affects timing rather than inflating enemy health or deflating damage numbers. The radial ability menu slows time rather than fully pausing it, keeping some pressure even during ability selection. Camera options let players switch between close and far perspectives separately for combat and exploration.

Skill trees

Character progression runs through three named trees: Swordmastery, Witchcraft, and Vampirism. Swordmastery covers weapon arts and the passives that support them, Witchcraft covers the ritual magic Coen carves into his own skin, and Vampirism covers the night-form powers. Generic perks such as stamina, health and carry weight sit across all three rather than inside any one of them. Earlier materials described the split as human, vampire and shared abilities; the named trees are how the shipping build presents the same divide. See Skill Trees for the full breakdown, including how each tree is unlocked.

Design Influences

The Gamescom 2025 demo showed daytime swordplay comparable to The Witcher 3's directional combat but with faster response times and quicker direction changes. The nighttime vampire gameplay drew comparisons to the Arkham series and Dishonored, particularly the emphasis on supernatural mobility and predatory stealth. The overall design takes inspiration from Fallout 1 and 2's approach to non-linear quest structures.

Konrad Tomaszkiewicz has described the difficulty curve in terms of rhythm games: the intent is that the directional inputs feel impossible at first and become fast and automatic after about a week of play, so the player learns to read the opponent rather than watch an animation play out. He has cited a third-person shooter he replayed five times as the model for how repeatable the moment-to-moment fighting should feel, and a life-sim RPG as the reference for spending limited time on preparation before a final confrontation. He also maintains that the combination does not map cleanly onto any one existing system.

April 2026 Confirmation

Rebel Wolves confirmed the four-direction attack and parry system in the April 28, 2026 Road to Launch livestream, alongside the omniblock alternative for players who prefer a less demanding input scheme. The team described the omniblock mode as a direct response to community feedback after earlier gameplay showings, and reaffirmed that the four-direction system is the intended experience.

The same stream also confirmed the officer aggression mechanic that links combat to the Notoriety System: clearing officer-controlled combat content (such as Ambrus's blood warehouses) drives a per-officer aggression bar, and pushing it to the top unlocks an officer-specific questline rather than only escalating soldier patrols. See Notoriety System for the full mechanic.

How the Attacks Were Built

Rebel Wolves has described the research behind the swordplay in some detail. Artists and designers drew on Historical European Martial Arts and other historical material, though the team has been careful to say the goal was never a one-to-one recreation of medieval fighting habits. A large share of the combat animation was captured on a motion-capture stage and then adjusted by animators to match the game's mood.

Each attack is constructed from three phases: a windup, an anticipation beat, and the swing frames themselves. That structure is what produces the readable telegraphing the directional system depends on, and it is the reason enemy attacks can be answered by reading the animation rather than memorising a timing window. The studio's stated aim was a system approachable enough for newcomers while still rewarding players who want to master it.

Combat went through many iterations before reaching its final shape, with the studio's stated priority being encounters that stay satisfying without losing their grounded feel: positioning, timing and commitment are meant to matter in every exchange regardless of which playstyle the player leans on.