He may no longer be part of CD Projekt Red, but The Witcher 3 Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz is carrying its legacy forward into his new studio’s debut outing, The Blood of Dawnwalker. Tomaszkiewicz isn’t the only former CDPR dev who can now be found at Rebel Wolves, and that legacy is immediately visible in the core of its upcoming RPG. One of the most meaningful ways the team is expanding on the elements of player freedom and choice is in The Blood of Dawnwalker’s quest system, which tosses out the concept of a ‘main quest’ almost entirely in favor of a much more freeform experience.
“We felt in the past that the side quests are more rewarding and better than the main quest,” Tomaszkiewicz tells Game Informer. More than a decade on, The Witcher 3 still handles its side missions better than just about any other game I’ve played. Many of them have the potential to surprise you by wrapping directly back into the main narrative, progressing key threads of Geralt’s adventure out of what seemed to be an innocuous activity. For The Blood of Dawnwalker, Rebel Wolves decided to embrace that idea and evolve it into a different structure.
“We don’t have the main story, which is quest after quest leading us to the end,” Tomaszkiewicz explains. “We created it differently.” You only have one essential task in The Blood of Dawnwalker: get into the castle where lead Coen’s family has been imprisoned, deal with their captors, and bring them home safely. You have 30 days and 30 nights in which to complete it. It’s an approach that’s most closely reminiscent of Breath of the Wild, where other tasks are largely undertaken in service of making that central goal easier.
“There are no additional requirements or prerequisites,” Lead Quest Designer Rafał Jankowski remarks, “which means that all the stories we prepared for the players are somewhat optional. Of course, we do encourage the players to follow these narrative threads, to explore the world, to learn all these stories, to experience what we prepared for them, which will make the attack on the castle much, much more approachable.”
“We call it narrative samples,” Tomaszkiewicz continues. “What it means is you have one goal, and all the quests around it are satellites, and you can do them in any order you want to, and you can build your own idea of how you want to beat the game and achieve the main goal. You can do that by playing the quests to gather allies; you can build yourself and do it yourself.”
“Almost every quest in the game is like a side quest, and they are meaningful.” Creative Director Mateus Tomaszkiewicz considers The Blood of Dawnwalker “closer to a pen-and-paper RPG where the Game Master is deciding how he wants to lead you.” Here, however, that choice is yours. This also bleeds into the way you shape Coen; while he isn’t a complete custom character, your decisions will provide “plenty of wiggle room for you to shape him in the way you want him to be.”
Will you embrace Coen’s vampiric corruption, leaning into the darkness and gradually becoming desensitized to the violence? Or would you rather stay true to his humanity and attempt to pursue a more pure-hearted route through the challenges you face? These decisions are tracked both on a per-character relationship level, and through the wider infamy system.
“If you go on rampages, if you just kill people, if you steal things and people catch you, you of course get this bad rep. But also, quest choices and just choosing to go after Brencis, his retinue, and their organization will definitely bump you up on their ‘bad people’ list. There are consequences to this, negative and positive.” This results in more mid-quest divergence, where NPCs “might remember certain things you do and react to it in other places.”
NPCs can even die – whether by your hand, or by your inaction. This can cut off entire related quest lines, something Rebel Wolves has the freedom to enact because such a large percentage of the game’s mission log isn’t required for completion. It can even manifest against your will, should you fail to keep Coen’s vampiric hunger under control. Mateus Tomaszkiewicz says it’s “really important to us” that this feels like a constant point of pressure. “It’s always present with him, and I feel without it, you’re basically just a superhero with some special traits. I think it adds an additional layer of weight and darkness to his adventure.”
Konrad Tomaszkiewicz is confident in Rebel Wolves’ ability to deliver on the promise. “You need to think about every choice and about every consequence separately and be really aware of what you want to achieve with this. You cannot copy this scheme, because if you do it more than once, people will be aware of that, and then they start to feel artificial when they’re making the choices.” He also values the occasional surprise: “With life, you’re making choices every day, smaller or bigger, and you cannot always predict the outcome.”
The Blood of Dawnwalker launches on Thursday September 3, 2026. I’m very eager to delve into its vampiric tale for myself. In the meantime, CD Projekt Red is bringing back The Witcher 3 for one final outing with confirmation of a third DLC, coming in 2027. It’s time to sharpen those swords.
