The Blood of Dawnwalker Update 1.1 adds an easier Story mode, a respec potion and animal petting

Update 1.1 for The Blood of Dawnwalker will add a new Story mode with additional combat assist, a potion that lets you forget your abilities and master new ones, and the ability to pet dogs and cats.

Expected to roll out next week, the patch also brings changes to combat targeting, the camera and traversal, a FrameGen update, uncensored blood and gore in the Japanese version on Steam, and more than 1,100 other improvements and fixes.

The patch notes were shared on Twitter/X, and they describe several of the changes that game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz told to our Bertie last month.

The game difficulty formerly known as Story will be rebadged as the 'Forgiving' difficulty, and a different new Story mode, with additional combat assist, will be added.

The Draught of Mind Rebirth will make you forget all your Swordmastery, Witchcraft, and Vampirism abilities, so you can respec and put the time you spent learning them towards a different set.

The update will also, quite rightly, let you pet dogs and cats.

The team is also addressing some technical issues, including an update to the FrameGen technology and dedicated settings.

Here are the patch notes:

New features:

• Draught of Mind Rebirth: Free your mind with the Draught of Mind Rebirth. Forget all your Swordmastery, Witchcraft, and Vampirism abilities, and use the time you spent learning them to master a different set of abilities.
• Petting animals: What happens when you merge a directional combat system with an ability to pet dogs and cats? Directional. Animal. Petting.
• Update to the Story mode: Pick between the Forgiving game difficulty (previously called Story) and a new Story mode with additional combat assist.
• Additional subtitle settings: Increase the font size and enable subtitles for ALL dialogue lines.

Changes and improvements:

• FrameGen update: Update to the FrameGen technology, including dedicated settings.
• Camera improvements: Adjusted animations and camera movements in combat.
• Combat improvements: Improved targeting, locking onto, and disengaging from enemies.
• Traversal improvements: Better responsiveness of targeting and attaching to surfaces when using Shadowstep and Planeshift.
• Japanese version update: Blood and gore will no longer be censored in the Japanese version of the game on Steam.

And over 1,100 other improvements and fixes.

The patch is expected to roll out next week.

The Blood of Dawnwalker arrived in early September and scored four stars on Eurogamer. Bertie praised its novel time-limiting structure and freeform approach, as well as its enjoyable quests and characters, writing: "CD Projekt Red alumni create a familiar dark fantasy adventure, but one with bold and provocative ideas of its own, that's mostly, enormously successful".