The Blood of Dawnwalker was released earlier this month, and it’s lived up to some pretty lofty expectations. The debut game from developer Rebel Wolves, founded by former The Witcher 3 developers, it has proven itself to be a worthy successor to CD Projekt Red’s masterpiece. One element that sets The Blood of Dawnwalker apart from The Witcher 3 and other open-world RPGs is its time management elements, yet future entries in the series might not include that unique mechanic.
In The Blood of Dawnwalker, the protagonist Coen (who’s a human by day and vampire by night) has 30 in-game days to save his family from the vampire lord Brencis and his cronies. Time only passes when Coen does certain things, like completing a quest or leveling up his skills. It’s a unique way to keep The Blood of Dawnwalker from feeling bloated, but not every player is on board with it. In a new interview with Eurogamer, director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz said that the time mechanic might not return for future games in the series.
“If we will have parts of the story, or the whole story, to which it fits, then we will use it. If we will have stories where it does not fit, we will not force it,” Tomaszkiewicz said. “We will play with this system and we will try to use it to boost the urgency of some events in the game. But I’m not saying that in every game we will have the same scheme or loop.”
The Blood of Dawnwalker’s divisive design
Depending on where you fall on The Blood of Dawnwalker‘s time gimmick, this is either great or annoying news. As Eurogamer noted, a popular mod allows players to adjust, or remove entirely, the time mechanic. Some players think the mechanic is annoying and want to be able to go at their own pace, without a ticking clock counting down the days until their family gets bled dry (literally). Other players have noted that the time mechanic is good for creating a sense of urgency, but that it’s not as restrictive as the game makes it out to be.
“There are a lot of complaints about the time mechanics,” Tomaszkiewicz said, adding that he “knew that it would be a problem” before the game came out. He noted that, because of the way The Blood of Dawnwalker is balanced and structured, players should be able to complete “around 80% of the content with the time mechanic so it’s not so bad.” Completionists might balk at that, but Tomaszkiewicz noted that even in a game without a restrictive time mechanic like The Witcher 3, players can’t see everything in one playthrough anyway because quests have different player choices and consequences.
The Blood of Dawnwalker is intended to be the first game in a series. It sold more than a million copies in just three days, and Rebel Wolves is now on the hunt for more developers to help make the sequel. Whether that sequel retains the first game’s unique gimmick remains to be seen.
We’re fans of the vampire RPG’s time mechanic here. “The time system doesn’t feel oppressive. In fact, knowing I can spend infinite amounts of time exploring the world without advancing in-game time is incredibly freeing. As the time cost is always displayed beforehand, it’s always a deliberate choice,” gamexplore’s Marloes Valentina Stella wrote in her impressions of the game.
The Blood of Dawnwalker is now available on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.
