There are plenty of hack-and-slash games around of late, but Vaewolf looks like its going to be one of the ones to keep a closer eye on as the weeks and moths towards the end of the year pass us by.

Developed by BAFTA and Emmy Award-shortlisted studio Milky Tea and published by Megabit, Vaewolf is a new action game built around the premise of playing as a supernatural hybrid that is part vampire and part werewolf.

Vaewolf was revealed during the Find Your Next Game Showcase at Gamescom, with its announcement trailer showing off a striking graphic novel-inspired world, fast combat and plenty of extremely unpleasant things happening to Vikings.

Players begin as a young elven survivor whose family has been slaughtered by a Viking clan. Revenge understandably follows, although rather than merely picking up a sword and heading off after them, our hero eventually becomes the legendary Vaewolf.

That transformation gives you access to several different approaches to combat. Your elven form can attack enemies with a bow, while shapeshifting into a werewolf provides considerably more direct solutions to your problems. The vampire side of the equation meanwhile introduces dark supernatural powers.

The really interesting part is that Vaewolf appears to let you move fluidly between those forms during fights, potentially combining ranged attacks, brute force and magic rather than locking players into one particular playstyle.

Judging purely from the reveal footage, the transitions look tremendously satisfying.

Vaewolf turns the Lake District into a supernatural nightmare

It isn’t only the combat that makes Vaewolf stand out either.

The game takes place across a heavily stylised interpretation of northern England, with locations inspired by the Lake District and Cumbria alongside underground caverns, ruins and considerably less welcoming places beneath the surface. I just got back from the Lakes, but a couple of days ago, and the vibe is perfect for this sort of thing.

Milky Tea has gone for a hand-drawn, graphic novel aesthetic filled with heavy shadows, bold outlines and Norse influences. It’s a great look, particularly once the screen starts filling with monsters, magical effects and werewolf claws.

There’s almost a comic-book panel quality to some of the environments, and it gives Vaewolf an identity that immediately separates it from the endless procession of realistic medieval action games we’ve seen over the years.

Obviously, an impressive trailer doesn’t guarantee an impressive game, and there’s still plenty we don’t know about how progression, exploration or its shapeshifting systems will work over a full campaign.

But as first impressions go, turning an elf into a vampire-werewolf and sending them across a gothic version of Cumbria to tear apart Vikings is a pretty strong pitch.

Vaewolf is due to launch in early 2027 for PC, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. It will also support Xbox Play Anywhere, allowing players who buy it digitally through Xbox to play across compatible Xbox consoles and Windows PC.

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