The Blood of Dawnwalker's main musical theme sounds a lot like The Witcher 3's - and for good reason

Polish developer Rebel Wolves has unveiled the main musical theme for its promising dark fantasy role-playing The Blood of Dawnwalker, and surprise surprise, it sounds a lot like The Witcher 3.

The theme was unveiled in a new year update video and with a special chamber orchestra performance of it. The main theme features eerie folk-like singing and scraped violin accompaniment that builds, propelled by strong drum beats, to wailing-like singing and more frantic violin. The similarities with the main Witcher 3 theme are striking.

The Blood of Dawnwalker theme is composed by Nikola Kołodziejczyk, and features Polish folk singer and musician Karolina Matuszkiewicz, and Polish folk violinist Kacper Malisz. The creators and performers, then, are different.

But The Witcher 3 also went for a strong Polish folk music sound, co-composed by CD Projekt Red's Marcin Przybyłowicz and Polish folk-metal group Percival. It was that group's influence that gave the game so much of its distinctive sound.

Incidentally, Percival hasn't been confirmed as a collaborator on The Witcher 4 yet, and CD Projekt Red didn't have anything to share when I asked directly about this back in November last year. But the group did perform music from The Witcher 4 trailer at a Witcher anniversary concert that month, which is where my question originated from (I watched the show), and I'd be surprised if Percival wasn't involved given how identifiable its sound is as 'The Witcher' now.

The Blood of Dawnwalker musical similarities follow many other similarities to the Witcher 3 in the game. Both are dark fantasies centred around a supernaturally capable main character, and both have a similar adult tone and are presented in a similar third-person way, with similar gameplay. Given who's making the game, though, these similarities are to be expected.

The Blood of Dawnwalker is directed by Konrad Tomaszkiewicz who directed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. What's more, he's fitted out his Rebel Wolves studio with other former CDPR developers who made that celebrated role-playing game.

But as I learnt recently talking to Tomaskiewicz, while The Blood of Dawnwalker might look and sound a lot like The Witcher 3, there are notable differences. Chief among them is you being a part-human, part-vampire character in Dawnwalker, called Coen, who's able to walk up walls and teleport at night.

A bigger change as far as I'm concerned, though, is the structure of the game. It's pitched as a far less led experience than The Witcher 3, in so much that The Blood of Dawnwalker doesn't have a main campaign. There's a main objective - to find and free your family in a 30 day timeframe - but how you go about that is up to you. There's a forested valley ahead of you, where do you want to go?

Rebel Wolves is aiming to release The Blood of Dawnwalker on PC and consoles this year.