Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, the creative director behind upcoming open-world RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker, has revealed that players will have the freedom to kill NPCs in the game, even important ones. In an interview with GamesRadar, he spoke about how the game is designed as a sandbox, and that means giving players plenty of freedom.
However, while gameplay freedom is an important aspect in The Blood of Dawnwalker, Tomaszkiewicz also spoke about playing to studio Rebel Wolves’ strengths when it comes to crafting strong narratives and writing interesting characters.
“It’s a sandbox, meaning we’re trying to maximize the options of your choice in the game,” Tomaszkiewicz said in the interview. “But it isn’t purely focused on gameplay. We were trying to play to our strengths, because our past projects were very focused on narrative, on good storytelling, interesting characters and a lot of lore to find.”
While The Blood of Dawnwalker will have a well-established character as its primary protagonist, players will still be able to further fine-tune the character through important in-game choices. This even includes the ability to kill off characters that might be important for the main story.
“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.”
Tomaszkiewicz has previously spoken about The Blood of Dawnwalker being a narrative sandbox where players can make choices that affect the story. These choices can happen in both the story itself as well as through gameplay.
“It’s how we allow you, the player, to interact with it,” explained Tomaszkiewicz in January. “So the core of it is maximising player agency and freedom of choice while at the same time delivering the high-quality narratives that we are known for crafting in the past.”
Earlier this week, he spoke about the length of The Blood of Dawnwalker, revealing that it will tke players anywhere between 30 and 40 hours to finish its main campaign.
The Blood of Dawnwalker was originally unveiled back in December 2024. Published by Bandai Namco, the game is developed on Unreal Engine 5 by industry veterans with experience on titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
While it doesn’t yet have a release date, The Blood of Dawnwalker is currently in development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
