The Blood of Dawnwalker Crosses One Million Sales on $40 Million Budget

Rebel Wolves’ dark role-playing game The Blood of Dawnwalker has surpassed one million copies sold following its launch.

Rebel Wolves has turned The Blood of Dawnwalker into a major commercial hit, moving over a million copies in just a couple of days. That success is even more impressive because it apparently didn’t cost much to make. According to Jason Schreier’s piece on developer Rebel Wolves’ journey to make the game, $40 million is the magic number. That initial milestone brought in about $70 million from base sales at $70 per copy, not accounting for the Eclipse version, which costs another additional amount. After knocking off 30% for platform cuts, and trimming away a bit more for regional pricing, taxes, physical retail, and coffee, early revenue realistically looks at the $35-50 million range for those first million copies sold.

Production Budget and Publisher Partnerships Behind The Blood of Dawnwalker

The development of the role-playing game The Blood of Dawnwalker cost approximately $40 million, according to reporting from Bloomberg. That figure excludes marketing expenses. For the modern AAA industry, this is a relatively small budget, as the publication notes that many large projects today require significantly higher costs. According to the report, NetEase gave Rebel Wolves a $40 million development budget, while Bandai Namco agreed to publish the game, meaning they handled things like marketing costs.

We have no idea how much marketing cost, nor do we know how all the various splits between the companies are being handled. So, it’s impossible to say how much profit has been made, if any yet. But what we can say with a fairly high degree of confidence is the game has made its $40 million development budget back. And keep in mind, it has probably sold quite a few more copies since then, too. That’s seriously impressive when you contrast it against big triple-A titles, which these days regularly sit in the $150-300 million range for development, meaning they have to sell a shitload of copies to break even.

Setting, Mechanics, and Historical Budget Comparisons

The Blood of Dawnwalker is a dark role-playing game set in the 14th century in the fictional Vale-Sangor valley. The main character, Koen, who has become half-vampire, tries to save his family, kidnapped by a brutal vampire clan. Players have 30 in-game days to complete the game, and the hero’s abilities change depending on the time of day: during the day he fights as a human, and at night he gains vampire powers.

There is also a very fitting comparison to be made with The Witcher 3, considering Rebel Wolves is largely made up of former CD Projekt Red developers. Development of The Witcher 3 reportedly cost around $32 million in 2015, compared with the $40 million NetEase provided for The Blood of Dawnwalker. On paper, that makes Dawnwalker about $8 million more expensive, but inflation does its usual annoying thing to the numbers: $32 million in 2015 is equivalent to roughly $45 million today. In real terms, then, the two games had remarkably similar development budgets, with Dawnwalker potentially even costing slightly less.