Blood of Dawnwalker Update 1.1 finally adds skill respecs

Rebel Wolves is preparing its first major update for The Blood of Dawnwalker, with Update 1.1 finally adding a way for players to reset their abilities instead of being permanently locked into earlier build choices.

The patch is planned for the week of October 19, although Rebel Wolves has not announced an exact release day. Alongside respecs, it includes a new easier difficulty setting, combat and traversal improvements, accessibility changes and more than 1,100 additional fixes and improvements.

Update 1.1 introduces the Draught of Mind Rebirth, an item capable of resetting abilities across the Swordmastery, Witchcraft and Vampirism skill trees. Players can then use the time previously spent learning those abilities to unlock a different combination of skills.

That addresses one of the RPG's more restrictive systems. The Blood of Dawnwalker currently offers no conventional respec option, meaning an unwanted ability choice remains attached to a playthrough and experimenting with another build can require starting again or continuing with skills the player no longer wants.

Difficulty options are also being reorganized. The existing Story difficulty will be renamed Forgiving, while a new Story setting will become the easiest option and include additional combat assistance for players primarily interested in following Coen's story.

Rebel Wolves is also improving enemy targeting, lock-on behavior and disengaging from combat. Shadowstep and Planeshift should respond more reliably when targeting and attaching to surfaces, while combat animations and camera movement are being adjusted.

The patch also expands subtitle options by letting players increase text size and enable subtitles for every spoken line. PC players are getting updated frame-generation technology and dedicated settings, while the Japanese Steam version will no longer censor blood and gore.

There is one considerably less serious addition as well: directional animal petting. Rebel Wolves has adapted the directional input concept used by the game's combat so Coen can pet dogs and cats from different directions, giving Update 1.1 an unusually elaborate version of a feature that most RPGs handle with a single interaction.

Rebel Wolves has not yet published the full list of more than 1,100 changes, so the extent of the remaining bug fixes will become clearer when the complete patch notes arrive. The Blood of Dawnwalker launched on September 3 for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S and passed one million copies sold within its first week.