The Blood of Dawnwalker Will Use Time Limit Mechanic to Push the RPG Genre Forward – Creative Director
The Blood of Dawnwalker creative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz has revealed that studio Rebel Wolves wants to push the genre forward by making use of its in-game time limit as a central mechanic. Speaking to GamesRadar, Tomaszkiewicz spoke about how the “time as a resource” idea is central to The Blood of Dawnwalker, saying that it helps “add another layer of non-linearity”.
Tomaszkiewicz doubles down on the idea of the narrative sandbox that the studio has previously spoken about, forcing players to make difficult choices about how they will end up spending their time with the game, all while an in-game timer is constantly ticking down. Tomaszkiewicz said that it will “have this natural tension build up and to add weight to your choices.”
Despite this, however, Tomaszkiewicz also emphasises that players should not be worried about potentially missing out on things because they felt pressured by the time limit.
“You shouldn’t be anxious about missing out on content in different parts of the world, just because we have this time system,” he said. “To me personally, that’s very important, because I would be very angry if a game did something like this, where I just missed out on a bunch of content I did not know exists.”
Tomaszkiewicz also spoke about how the game might end up being divisive, with some players enjoying the stress-inducing time limit while others might bounce off the game since they would prefer to explore the world and do its quests at their own pace. While saying that “the risk is worth the reward,” Tomaszkiewicz also brings up comparisons to the development of The Witcher 3, which also tried to bring in its own new ideas, like an expansive open world, while still maintain a high quality of writing thanks to in-depth quest design.
“We heard a lot of these conversations during The Witcher 3 development as well,” Tomaszkiewicz said. “I think not many games were trying to do what we did back then. We tried to combine these really expansive storytelling techniques that were usually built in more linear RPGs, like more corridor-structured RPGs, like The Witcher 2, for example. We tried to carry that over to an open world and so on.”
“And there was a risk to this as well; there was a risk to having such a long story as we did with The Witcher 3,” he continued. “We didn’t know if people actually want this, if that actually fits the play style of an open-world game. But we took these risks. We did what we could to mitigate them. I think, in the end, it worked out pretty well. I’m pretty sure some people did not like it, and they preferred the style of a game like The Witcher 2, or maybe some Bethesda games. And that’s totally fine. You won’t please everyone, right? If you’re trying to make a game for everyone, it’s probably for no one. You need to think about, ‘what are your core players’ and how to satisfy their needs and how to make it fun for them, and also push the genre forward.”
On the flip side, Tomaszkiewicz also poke about how difficult it might be to challenge established traditions and norms of the RPG genre, since “sometimes even very mild changes can be extremely controversial.”
“They will say that it’s not an RPG or that the game is ruined now, even though it’s not really a huge change on paper,” he said. “It can be huge for the players.”
Tomaszkiewicz then spoke about how the time limit mechanic is the studio’s own way of pushing the RPG genre forward. He also brought up other games that experimented with how time flows in a game, including Pentiment. However, combining an open world and its plenty of side content with the concept of a time limit would be “novel”, he believes.
“The thing we are doing is, I would say, very experimental, because even though I saw some games experimenting with time, like Pentiment, for example, these games are a bit different,” Tomaszkiewicz said. “They’re not open world RPGs, and trying to combine it with an open world RPG, I think is novel. So of course, we sat down. We were talking about ‘what would we achieve by having this? What are the risks?’ And, you know, we’re trying to consciously tackle both.”
Despite this time limit, Tomaszkiewicz has revealed that there will also be plenty of ways to help players manage their time better. An example of this is the fact that time will only really move forward with quests in the game. Players can choose to spend more time roaming around in the open world without worrying about running out of time. He described this as the studio’s way of giving players control over how they manage time as a resource.
“Our way [of addressing that] is giving you as much control over this time as a resource,” said Tomaszkiewicz.”The whole idea of time as a resource is kind of a way to tackle it, like abandoning real time. Time flow is the first step in that direction, turning time into a resource you get to spend as you wish, instead just flowing, and then telegraphing clearly which activities will make you spend the time. So, basically, making you feel safe, that you have control and agency in there.”
“There are no hidden tricks and traps, and we won’t push you into situations with no return where you weren’t warned that you would spend time there,” he added. “This is a big one for me, and of course, it is a lot of work because it is a very, very complicated jigsaw to make very narrative driven, interesting quests and make that mechanic work. We don’t do gimmicks with it.”
The Blood of Dawnwalker is in development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details about the upcoming RPG, check out how its protagonist, Coen, will be unique and not overpowered.
