Blood of Dawnwalker New Game Plus: when it lands, what carries over, what to do with your save

If you rolled credits on The Blood of Dawnwalker and were about to uninstall it, or put the disc up for sale, give it one more week. Rebel Wolves has detailed Update 1.2, and the headline feature is the one people have been asking for since launch: New Game Plus.

The short version of what the studio has said. The update is planned for next week, with no exact day attached. New Game Plus opens up once you've finished the epilogue. Your level, unlocked skills and inventory come with you into the second run. The level cap rises to 100 with Update 1.2, though it isn't clear yet whether that applies outside New Game Plus, and most items get New Game Plus variants with updated stats. Alongside that, the patch rebalances enemy health and how abilities are used, and touches up the map.

What I'd do before the patch

First, look after your finished save. New Game Plus requires a completed epilogue, and the studio hasn't said which save counts for that. So keep the save you ended the game on, and don't delete or overwrite it until the patch notes are in. It's the only hard requirement we know of.

Second, don't strip your character. Inventory carries over, so the gear you're tempted to sell off or dismantle in a tidy-up may be exactly what gets a stronger variant in the second run. We don't know yet how those variants are handed out, so the cautious move is to leave your stash alone until the patch notes are in.

Third, if you were planning to start a fresh second playthrough this weekend - wait. Starting from zero a few days before a mode that lets you keep everything is the one decision you'd really regret.

What we still don't know

Quite a lot, honestly. The studio hasn't spelled out how enemy scaling works across the map, whether you can stack New Game Plus runs one after another, or what exactly does *not* carry over - story choices and quest items being the obvious question marks. And "planned for next week" is a plan, not a promise; patches slip.

My read: this is the right kind of post-launch support. A second run with a full build is where an RPG with this much choice gets interesting, because you can finally play the path you skipped without grinding your way back up first. For anyone who buys physical and resells, it also changes the maths a little - a game you were done with just got a reason to stay on the shelf. I'd hold the disc until I've seen how the second run actually plays, then decide.

Image: Pudelek / CC BY-SA 4.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hunedoara_Castle_(Vajdahunyadi_v%C3%A1r)_by_Pudelek.jpg