The Blood of Dawnwalker is an upcoming RPG from a number of former The Witcher 3 builders, with a medieval Jap European setting blended with heavy darkish fantasy components.
The sport is a narrative-driven expertise using a deep day-and-night cycle the place gameplay dynamics change based mostly on the time of day. It’s gritty, gothic to the core, and crammed to the brim with blood, guts, and vampires, in addition to some mighty acquainted Witcher antics in its soundtrack and artwork course.
Throughout Gamescom 2025, we bought the fantastic alternative to take a seat down with Patryk Fijałkowski, Insurgent Wolves’ Senior Quest designer, who shared a ton of perception relating to The Blood of Dawnwalker‘s distinctive day-and-night mechanics, participant company, a number of outcomes to the identical quest, and an entire lot extra.
Right here’s the dialog in full.
Observe: We have now edited components of this interview to make the textual content clearer and keep away from frequent speech repetitions.
The Blood of Dawnwalker has quests that may be tackled from two totally different instances of day, two totally different views, they usually all go in numerous instructions. For instance, at evening you need to use your vampiric powers to seek out issues, however you can’t achieve this through the day. How tough is it as a designer to design a quest that has all these components?
Patryk Fijałkowski (senior quest designer, Insurgent Wolves): Properly, it’s undoubtedly tough. Plenty of complications, lots of thought course of and iterations. However on the finish of the day, it’s rewarding, I believe. And it made us take into consideration the sport in its entirety at an early stage. We have now to have the entire recreation at an early stage, begin testing it, discover the sting instances, issues that don’t work, issues we’ve to suppose by means of. And there have been many.
Just like the presentation you noticed, for instance. We’re within the cathedral through the day, and there’s this goal that pushes the time ahead. And what if the time adjustments to the evening in that state of affairs? There was lots of stuff like that.
Right here we had been pondering, okay, so will we simply not do an goal that pushes time contained in the cathedral, or do we’ve another concepts? And in that case, for instance, we thought, nicely, we’ve the deacon. When the evening comes, the deacon can method us and say, “hey, the cathedral is off limits at evening, you must go away.” He reveals us the door.
It was actually like a puzzle. On the finish of the day, we had been simply fascinated about learn how to overcome it, whether or not it’s taking a step again or pondering possibly we are able to do that within the manufacturing price range that we’ve, and we simply decide our battles.
Through the presentation, we noticed the boss die through the day. But when we had been to beat him at evening, would he nonetheless die then due to being a Dawnwalker? Or is it a state of affairs the place you may get totally different endings relying on whether or not you sort out the search ending within the day or ending within the evening?
Fijałkowski: It depends upon the search. I gained’t spoil what occurs at evening on this state of affairs. What I can undoubtedly say is that as a result of Mihai is a Dawnwalker, he has a unique moveset and there’s a completely totally different boss combat. However, , I assume I’ll spoil it a bit of bit.
Like, demise is demise, Coen can die too, so you possibly can kill him additionally at evening. However there are situations the place tackling the search at evening could lead you to totally different outcomes. One other factor is that due to the twin gameplay, [with] the human Coen, the evening Coen, it’s not that you’ll simply sort out the search at evening.
You, for instance, could do half of it through the day, half of it at evening. [An] instance once more from the presentation, you possibly can attain the library at evening, get the important thing, however you don’t must do the entire quest. You possibly can simply go away the library, for instance, to do one thing else that you must do at evening, at [the] metropolis or one thing, [and then] return at day, you’ve got the important thing, you skip the deacon, it’s possible you’ll discover clues you want at different locations. We confirmed lots of this quest, but it surely’s nonetheless not your complete quest. There are nonetheless other ways to go there.
Being a quest designer, how does it really feel to know that some gamers would possibly miss out on some issues the workforce has labored on totally? As a result of in the event that they do a quest through the day, they’re not going to see what occurs at evening and vice versa. How does the workforce really feel realizing that a few of their finest work could be missed out as a result of gamers sort out it at totally different instances?
Fijałkowski: Actually, I’m talking for myself, however I believe a few of my teammates would agree. We’re excited. In fact, we’ve put lots of coronary heart into that. That’s a part of the enjoyable. We’re excited to see gamers speaking with [each other], like “You probably did the search on the cathedral? Yeah, I attempted to kill Zanti, however she was too arduous.” And the opposite one could be like, “What, Zanti? There’s Zanti? I met her at a unique place.”
So I believe it’s thrilling. And, , we try to do that twin gameplay and offer you as a lot freedom as we are able to. We name it a story sandbox for a cause.
After the prologue, you possibly can simply do no matter. We don’t need to say that it is a principal quest and that may be a facet quest. We attempt to enrich the principle purpose, so Coen doesn’t do random stuff that doesn’t make sense provided that he’s on a mission to save lots of his household.
And should you strive arduous, you possibly can nonetheless see 80 p.c of the sport or so in a single playthrough. As a result of though the replayability is clearly a giant a part of the sport, you need gamers to strive totally different routes, ally with totally different factions, stuff like that. We nonetheless know that there are completionists and there are speedrunners who simply need to go ahead. For instance, [they would] play it as soon as and have a sense that they’ve a full expertise. And I believe seeing 80 p.c of the sport on a single playthrough is achievable.
We additionally must keep in mind that though there’s a deadline, 30 days and 30 nights, it doesn’t imply a recreation over. We attempt to be as reactive as attainable, and we don’t need to make these invisible partitions, be it within the degree design or basic recreation design.
How did the workforce give you this concept of a time restrict, however made it in order that it feels truthful? How has taking a quest that’s going to push the time ahead been made to not really feel like a giant danger to the participant?
Fijałkowski: Once we got here up with the concept, it was actually a pure factor, as a result of we had the vampires, we knew we needed to make a twin gameplay loop, so we knew the day and evening can be necessary. So then the time must be necessary too.
And we needed the gamers to really feel the urgency of the principle purpose, however we didn’t need to stress them out, as a result of, as a participant myself, I don’t like timers in video games. Generally the time ticking is hectic in an unfun manner, so we didn’t need to try this.
We have now an open world, in spite of everything, and we wish gamers to discover it freely, so you possibly can go loot stuff and make certain that the time gained’t progress. We all the time clearly talk that, hey, should you do that, then the time will transfer ahead. And I believe many of the quests will push the time ahead in a technique or one other, and we hope that the tales are attention-grabbing sufficient, and the rewards are priceless sufficient that gamers will likely be engaged, and simply deal with time as a useful resource.
When you’ve got cash in a recreation, you spend it, proper? You see a cool armor, you see a recipe or one thing like that, you’ve got cash, and also you need to spend it to develop into stronger, to see new issues. It really works equally right here: you’ve got this time as a useful resource, you understand how a lot you’ve got, and also you see an attention-grabbing story, and also you suppose, nicely, it’s half a day, nonetheless 20 days to go, why not?
I believe it requires a unique mindset, however I believe as soon as gamers have skilled it, they may see that it’s an attention-grabbing one. Although they aren’t careworn, they nonetheless have to recollect what recreation they’re enjoying, the world they’re in. We attempt to make every part linked. Quests, the lore, stuff like that, all of it comes collectively into one cohesive expertise.
So relating to that connection you simply identified, let’s say that I tackle the cathedral quest that we noticed within the presentation, I do the evening quest, I am going to the highest of the cathedral, I see the sigil, I get the e-book, I am going to the catacombs. Meaning I’ve clearly missed the half the place, within the day, I’d have to maneuver the bookshelf and face that enemy beneath.
Are there any quests the place an enemy or one thing that’s occurred will get skipped, however would possibly come again and be an issue in another manner sooner or later? Or is it a case of should you didn’t try this day quest and went to seek out that enemy, it simply by no means seems once more?
Fijałkowski: It depends upon the search, however we do have conditions the place it’s possible you’ll sort out an enemy in a sure quest, and should you don’t, he’ll seem in a unique place and be tougher. I believe a few of them are an enormous a part of the design.
Concerning inspiration to your questlines, as a result of you’ve got this sandbox world, it’s very non-linear. When creating these quests, the place does the workforce go to get the concepts, and the way do you then take these concepts and produce them into actuality utilizing the engine and the world?
Fijałkowski: I believe two of probably the most inspiring video games can be Fallout 2 and clearly The Witcher 3. [Fallout 2] has a construction the place you’ve got a purpose, it’s clear, and there are a lot of prospects to try this. It was actually an inspiring construction for us to go and work out how we are able to try this with our methods and stuff like that.
I personally didn’t work on The Witcher 3, although we’ve veterans there. We do love the sport, those that didn’t create it. I believe those who created it are pleased with it. And it’s of their DNA. They understand how darkish fantasy works, they usually know what sort of tales they need to inform. And we’re in sync with that. So I believe in terms of the emotional influence, the cinematic really feel of it, The Witcher 3 was undoubtedly an inspiration.
And in terms of time mechanics, stuff like Persona and Pentiment had been those to look into the way it feels to have this time and use it and determine what you need to do.
If I’m a participant who possibly performed this earlier than and has intensive information of the sport, possibly I’m conscious of all the principle particulars, the place all the details are, in concept, may I end the prologue after which go straight to the ending of the sport?
Fijałkowski: Sure. It is going to be actually arduous, clearly, however we do enable it. I’m guessing in all probability 12 hours after the launch, there will likely be a YouTube video, like day one ending, stuff like that. However we’re conscious of that, we’re encouraging [players] to go wild, experiment, and we do make it possible to go straight to the citadel, solo it, and stuff like that. And we’re curious how gamers will sort out it.
On that, is there a prospect of a number of endings or revisions?
Fijałkowski: Yeah, we’ve a number of endings, and a few of them could be shocking.
