While upcoming open-world RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker will have an in-story time limit of 30 days for players to finish the story, director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz has described this time limit as more of a “currency” that players have control over how its spent. In an interview with GamesRadar, Tomaszkiewicz spoke about this time limit, and how players will still have plenty of freedom to play the game without the pressure that a time limit would imply.
Tomaszkiewicz compared the concept of spending time in The Blood of Dawnwalker to spending money, with players having the choice to, for example, bribing a character with gold so that they don’t have to spend their own time to accomplish an objective. “We play with this as a resource,” said Tomaszkiewicz in the interview. “Sometimes we give you the option to pay the bribe to avoid losing time.”
He went on to explain players will always have full control over how their time is spent in The Blood of Dawnwalker, but that the title will also make players use the resource to accomplish certain things. “You always will know when you’re using it, and you will control it fully,” he explained. “But also, we play sometimes with this resource to build the emotions in this particular moment, especially when there will be not many time left to finish your tasks.”
Giving the player control over how their time in The Blood of Dawnwalker will be spent shouldn’t come as a big surprise considering how heavily the studio has been talking about its “narrative sandbox”. Back in February, creative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz had spoken about how players will have quite a bit of freedom in the game, with the core design behind the title revolving around “maximizing players’ agency and freedom of choice.”
“It’s how we allow you, the player, to interact with it,” he said. “So the core of it is maximizing players’ agency and freedom of choice, while, at the same time delivering the high-quality narratives that we are known for crafting in the past.”
This freedom, according to Tomaszkiewicz, also includes allowing players to do things like killing off important NPCs. He noted that doing this might even lead players to uncover brand new quest lines.
“It’s not exactly endless possibilities because obviously, we have a set character you’re playing with Coen, and he has his own personality and so on, but within this personality, we’re trying to give you the ability to shape your own Coen,” he explained. “For example, we allow you to kill off a lot of NPCs, and a lot of them can be really important NPCS.”
“Sometimes this can lead to alternate outcomes or even cut off certain quest lines,” he continued. “And this, of course, ties into our other systems […] you being a Dawnwalker means that you have this blood hunger during the night time so this can actually lead to these NPCs dying if you’re not careful.”
The Blood of Dawnwalker is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, with developer Rebel Wolves being comprised of several veterans of the gaming industry, including some that worked on massive critically-acclaimed RPGs like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The title doesn’t yet have a release date, with the studio planning to bring it to store shelves some time in 2026.
