It's been less than a month since Rebel Wolves unveiled their debut open world RPG, The Blood of Dawnwalker. The Polish developer, founded by former CD Projekt RED employees, is betting heavily on a dynamic world that also uses a time limit (the main character has only 30 days and nights to save his family) to fuel a greater sense of urgency. In an interview that appeared in PC Gamer's March 2025 magazine (issue 406), Rebel Wolves delved deeper into this design concept.
Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz (Creative Director): Dawnwalker is not going to be a game where it’s a pure sandbox, where you’re just focusing on the gameplay. We do want you to experience these moments with the world of the characters and the emotions that these situations can evoke, and so on and so forth. But, at the same time, you are looking for ways of maximising freedom as you do.
Daniel Sadowski (Design Director): In our game, we want the world to be dynamic. We don’t want it to be static, like waiting for the player all the time. So, both action and inaction in Dawnwalker have serious consequences, and that’s also how we structured the quests, so that it can all be showcased while you play the game.
Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz: Narrative sandbox informs not only the main quest – it also informs all the other types of content that we have in Dawnwalker. We are trying to make tie-ins from these. You know, you might encounter seemingly inconsequential, smaller activities of the world, but we are trying to make them tie into this main narrative. It kind of feels like a synergetic approach where all this content helps each other to be this cohesive whole. It’s not like there is the main story, and there are just sidequests that are unrelated to it. All of it kind of overlaps a little bit, if that makes sense.
Konrad Tomaszkiewicz (Game Director): Along with the narrative sandbox, I think the time is the most important thing for me because, when you put it together, it makes something really unique – this feeling of urgency in the games can be upgraded. For example, when you’re playing The Witcher 3, and you know that Ciri needs help, but you decide to go play Gwent – it’s something which, you know… you feel that it’s a game, and it’s a really good game. But it’s a game. And maybe if you had some resource, and you know that maybe if you don’t go, something would happen – then your thinking about this game would be different, and maybe the immersion would be better, and maybe your emotions would be different.
To clarify, the time mechanics, which Rebel Wolves considers a core element of the game's narrative sandbox, will only move forward when you actually complete content to avoid stressing players too much.
The Blood of Dawnwalker doesn't have a release date yet, but the developer is planning a full gameplay reveal this Summer.
