The Blood of Dawnwalker finally has a release date — but there are still some unanswered questions regarding the game’s structure and gameplay hooks.
To be fair, developer Rebel Wolves has given us loads of footage up until this point, but we’re more talking about the title’s overall scope.
Fortunately, CEO and director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz — who previously directed The Witcher 3 before leaving CD Projekt Red to help found Rebel Wolves — has offered up some insight via the PlayStation Blog.
Most notably, he attempts to explain Dawnwalker’s overarching time limit system — which has been a point of conversation for many potential buyers.
Indeed, when the time-keeping mechanic was first mentioned, there were plenty of negative reactions, with onlookers questioning the necessity of such a limitation within an open world setting.
Since then, the developer’s clarified that the “time limit” isn’t about rushing players through the game, and that it works more like a progression system, with time only passing when you make key decisions during quests and the like.
Tomaszkiewicz goes into more detail: “We don’t want to punish you for doing stuff. So we aimed to get it to the perfect point where you’re not stressed about the time, but still feel that this big event is coming closer and closer.”
Protagonist Coen has 30 days and nights to rescue his loved ones from a vampire-led cabal, and you’ll supposedly be spending a lot of the main story investigating and subsequently weakening the shadowy group.
But Dawnwalker’s also an open world game, featuring a sizeable map that you’re free to explore — so how exactly does the concept of a time limit gel with having so much optional content to discover?
“You’ll be able to complete a majority of the game before the time runs out,” the director reassures.
“And it’s not necessarily a game over when it happens. There are consequences [for running out of time], but the game moves on,” he continues.
That latter point is really interesting, given that Rebel Wolves has been bigging up the game’s focus on choice and consequence. Tomaszkiewicz goes on to mention “many different endings and solutions”.
With all of this in mind, then, just how long is Dawnwalker supposed to be? According to Tomaszkiewicz, current playtests are landing somewhere between 55 and 70 hours, which obviously makes it a rather beefy RPG.
How are you feeling about The Blood of Dawnwalker? What do you make of the game’s “time limit”? Make a crucial decision in the comments section below.
