Black Friday week is here, and The Blood of Dawnwalker — Rebel Wolves' vampire RPG that sold a million copies in its first month — is in its first real sale season. Should you buy it now, wait for a deeper cut, or skip it entirely? A month of tracked price history, plus one awards night, gives us enough to build an honest framework: dated numbers, a few structural facts about how this game is sold, and no crystal ball.

Context, reported November 11 at the Golden Joystick Awards 2026: the game finished 5th for Ultimate Game of the Year (Resident Evil Requiem won with 17%) and 2nd in Best Storytelling at 21%, behind Dispatch's 41% — its lead-actor nomination didn't convert either. A strong first-year showing, zero trophies. None of it changes the purchase math below; if anything, the Storytelling result confirms what reviews said all along (Metacritic ~83, OpenCritic ~84 at launch): the narrative is the hook.

Step one: which edition — and why the answer is awkward right now

The game sells in two editions: Standard at $69.99 and Eclipse at $79.99. The ten-dollar gap buys digital extras only — a world artbook, the soundtrack, a comic — with zero gameplay content. For most buyers, that decision collapses to Standard.

Here's the awkward part: Black Friday's first PSN wave discounted only Eclipse (20% off), while Standard sat at full price on Steam, GOG and the PlayStation Store alike. The edition most people should buy is currently the one not on sale — which makes "wait for Standard to enter a wave" a better strategy right now than paying the Eclipse premium. Whether that happens is exactly what the refresh window below is for. I'm not going to predict it; nobody honestly can.

Three routes, and what each one is good for

Route 1 — PSN digital. Eclipse is 20% off at $63.99 / €63.99, with the first wave ending November 20 (07:59 UTC on the US listing; UK and Germany listings show 23:59 UTC the same day). Sony's broader sale runs through November 30 and refreshes once around November 16, per the sale announcement coverage. The refresh date is a published fact; whether Standard re-enters at a different cut is not something anyone can promise.

Route 2 — Physical. Amazon listed the PS5 physical edition at €52.90, down 24% from €69.99, reported November 4 (per Gamekult's coverage). A disc has one structural advantage no digital deal can offer: it can be resold later. That's not a nudge to flip games — just an option key shops and PSN can't give you.

Route 3 — Key stores. The tracked picture as of November 9 (per GoCDKeys, all excluding payment fees): PC keys hit €36.90 at Driffle including a coupon, against a ~€38.32 all-time low from September; on console, the PlayStation Store's own September sale (€48.99) still beats every third-party PS5 price to date, and Xbox Series X|S sits at €50.99 via Instant Gaming against a €48.45 low from K4G back in September. Two classic pitfalls before checkout: confirm whether you're buying a key or an account-format purchase (accounts are usually cheaper but are not a key), and check region restrictions — the cheap listings are rarely region-free.

Route 4, sort of — the $1 mystery crate. Fanatical's mystery crate has a chance to contain a The Blood of Dawnwalker Steam key for one dollar. The odds are not published, so the honest framing is exactly that: a chance, at a one-dollar trial cost. If it lands, it's the lowest legitimate route that exists. No guarantees are printed on the box.

What counts as a good price (history, not prophecy)

The tracked record says PC keys have lived in a €38–39 band since August, with the €36.90 coupon price as the new low; console deals have swung in a €48–52 band, and September's console low was set by the PlayStation Store itself, not by key shops. If you want thresholds instead of predictions: PC below ~€38 and console below ~€48 are, historically, good prices. Above them, patience has been rewarded before. That's a record of what happened — not a forecast that it will repeat on schedule.

Three dated nodes frame the rest of the month, all published facts: the ~November 16 PSN refresh, November 20 (first Eclipse wave ends), and November 30 (the sale event closes). Everything between those dates is speculation, and social media already has plenty of that.

Who should just buy it, and who should wait

If you bounced off in the first two weeks: Update 1.1 (October 22) is your re-entry. The new respec item refunds the in-game days you spent on a wrong build, and the additional Story mode turns the 30-day timer down from stress generator to backdrop. Polygon called 1.1 a "game-changer"; the timer design itself found a defender in Larian's publishing director, who argued the pressure is the point. My own take on that debate lives here.

If you're waiting for New Game Plus: there is no timetable. The studio has confirmed it's looking into it, and that's the whole answer so far — "wait for NG+" is not currently a dated strategy.

If awards move you: last night's results — 5th, 2nd, no trophy — tell you the narrative is the hook. The narrative is exactly what a $63.99 Eclipse download or a €36.90 PC key buys you into.

Over to you

Are you buying during Black Friday, holding out for a Standard discount, or sitting this one out? And if you've already grabbed a key: key-format or account-format, and did the payment fees at checkout surprise you? Comments are open — I'm curious how the tracked lows are holding up in practice.

Further reading (from our fan-made companion site):

Disclosure: this piece comes from the team behind a fan-made The Blood of Dawnwalker companion site. We're not affiliated with Rebel Wolves or Bandai Namco Entertainment. Prices are quoted from the tracked sources named in the text with their dates; secondary coverage is cited in text.