Size and shape of the world
The map measures around 10km² — roughly 4km tall by 3km wide at its widest points, narrowing considerably in the upper half. It is entirely landmass with no water traversal.
Rebel Wolves deliberately chose density over scale, hand-crafting the valley to avoid repetitive filler. Reviewers have consistently described it as smaller than the sprawling open worlds it invites comparison with, but far more packed with things that are actually worth finding.
Vale Sangora is fictional but grounded: a secluded region modelled on the Carpathian Mountains, with the in-game map dated to 1349. Biomes include swamps, forests, mountains, caves and mines, plus secret areas tied to the vampires.
The 10 regions
The world is divided into ten named regions. Each has its own enemy set and its own loot worth clearing for.
- Laslea Glen — the starting area, home to Coen's village.
- Briar Sloughs
- Maragir Wealds
- Boar's Back
- Svartrau Outskirts
- Svartrau City — the central city.
- Rockfalls
- St. Tyna's Grove
- The Slits
- Tantari Woods
Who rules which corner
The map is carved into fiefdoms, with one vampire holding each corner. Brencis sits in the top left as the overlord who rules everything; Ambrus holds the north and top right; Bakir holds the southwest, bottom left; and Xanthe holds the southeast, bottom right.
Svartrau City in the centre is the exception — it is held collectively rather than by a single boyar. Brencis's seat, Greifberg Castle, overlooks the city from above, which makes the centre of the map the most heavily watched ground in the valley.
Because each boyar's operations are concentrated in their own region, disrupting one raises that specific boyar's anger and triggers edicts that make their territory harder to move through. Your infamy is regional as much as it is global.
Revealing the map
Towers and vantage points are the primary reveal mechanic. Climbing one marks nearby locations, after which collectibles and quests appear as white question-mark icons. Approaching an icon then reveals what kind of activity it actually is.
Coen adds context out loud as you scout — a line about what creatures are known to wander a place, or where a settlement's loyalties lie — and points of interest can be tracked with the compass at the top of the screen rather than by reopening the map.
One important catch: climbing towers requires your night-time Dawnwalker movement abilities. If you spot one during the day you either come back after dark or spend time advancing the clock, so scouting is largely a night job.
Shrines and fast travel
Shrines sit along roadsides and act as the game's checkpoint network. They are fast-travel points, resting spots, item storage and the place you spend experience on perks — which makes them worth prioritising early.
They do not all unlock on contact. Some need restoring first, typically by recovering a key item or a missing heart from a nearby enemy camp and bringing it back. Once restored, the shrine's full set of functions becomes available.
Fast travel starts from a shrine, so you cannot teleport out of the wilderness — you travel shrine to shrine. Their storage function is also why the carry-weight perks are not worth buying: you can dump gear at any shrine and sell it later.
Getting around without a mount
There is no horse. Coen crosses the valley under his own power, which makes two perks close to mandatory: Mercurial Fervour in the Witchcraft tree for a daytime haste effect on sprinting, and Shapeshift in the Vampirism tree for the wolf form at night.
Both sit in the bottom right of their respective trees and are easy to miss. Both are also worth exactly one point — the upgrades only shave off a little more time and stamina, which is poor value against combat perks.
Shadowstep supplements this at night, letting Coen blink short distances and move across walls and even ceilings. Several map locations are only naturally reachable in vampire form as a result.
Exploration is free — use that
Nothing about map exploration costs time. Walking, climbing towers, clearing camps, looting and reading the map are all zero-cost, and only committing to a quest advances the clock.
That makes a thorough early scouting pass genuinely free. Expect around three to four hours of real time to fully unfog the map and visit every shrine, with no in-game days spent.
There is no level scaling, so regions are built around fixed power levels and enemies get harder the further south you go. You can walk into a dangerous area early for better loot, and higher-level weapons can simply be looted from chests in tougher regions.
Interactive map tools
Community interactive maps track locations, shrines, weapons, manuals, characters, equipment and items. They typically offer a search bar that works on partial keywords, category filters down the side, and a Mark as Completed toggle on each pin.
Those are most useful for manuals and skill books, since perk ranks are gated behind finding them and it is not clear whether they spawn at fixed locations.
Treasure maps also exist in-game, found while searching houses and containers, and lead to buried caches — one documented example was guarded by a large bear and rewarded a strong weapon plus a unique consumable recipe.
Still to be confirmed
- One source describes the setting as the land of Laslea while others name the valley Vale Sangora with Laslea as a village and starting region. Naming to be confirmed.
- The red, vampire-themed plane glimpsed in promotional footage appears to be layered over the map, but its function has not been detailed. To be confirmed.
- Whether skill manuals appear at fixed map locations or drop randomly — to be confirmed.
- Exact region boundaries and which named region each boyar formally controls — to be confirmed.