Very early this year, The Blood of the Dawnwalker developer Rebel Wolves confirmed that their debut dark fantasy action RPG would release in 2026. Now, after a few months of silence, the CEO, Game Director, and Co-Founder Konrad Tomaszkiewicz has been interviewed on The Game Business Show, revealing that he is comfortable with the widespread comparisons to The Witcher games, especially after the successful focus tests. He also shared that the console versions are already shaping well, and he personally finished the whole game on a PlayStation 5.
I'm really comfortable. I feel really confident about our game; we're already past friends-and-family testing and focus tests at professional companies, and the feedback is really good.
I'm surprised that it went so smoothly, to be honest. Everybody says recruiting a team from scratch is really hard, but for us, it was quite easy, because people wanted to work with us. People say creating a triple-A game and making it work on consoles is really hard. We secured that from the beginning, using an outsource company run by friends of ours, who from the start were looking at what we were doing, pointing out potential optimization issues in the assets, optimizing gameplay code, and so on. Right now, the console [versions] are stable, it's working really well, and we're going to certification. I already finished The Blood of Dawnwalker on PS5, and it's great.
Even from the focus tests, we have really good results that make us confident we have a really cool game. I'm surprised that we didn't encounter big problems. That's my biggest surprise.
Tomaszkiewicz was a Senior Designer on The Witcher and The Witcher 2 and then Game Director on the critically acclaimed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Rebel Wolves also employs several former CD Projekt RED developers, so it's no wonder that The Blood of Dawnwalker might look similar to that series on the surface.
The Importance of a Different Experience, as Shown by Clair Obscur and Crimson Desert
The game does, however, offer many innovations compared to CD Projekt RED's beloved trilogy, such as much greater freedom in approaching quests, which the developers previously compared to pen-and-paper games. Indeed, in the interview, Tomaszkiewicz adds that Rebel Wolves risked a lot by incorporating elements that you would normally expect in indie games, but notes that successes like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Crimson Desert indicate it was the right choice:
I gathered people who love RPG video games, and from the beginning, we knew we wanted to create a story-driven open-world game with some twists, some elements from indie games inside a triple-A game. That's not easy to do; it's quite risky. But in the end, when we put it together, it works, and we made focus tests and people love the game, which I'm really proud and happy about.
We knew from the beginning we wanted to do this crazy stuff, because opening a new company to do exactly the same things as before is a problem. We wouldn't feel we're evolving or doing something fresh. As artists, we wanted to push the boundaries of the triple-A RPG by adding quite risky things that give more immersion, more emotion, a different feel when you play. And I think this trend is growing. When you look at Clair Obscur, or even Crimson Desert right now, those games are different. They're not copies of other triple-A titles on the market; they're delivering something fresh.
The Blood of Dawnwalker will have at least one thing in common with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Crimson Desert; it used generative AI during development. However, unlike those two games, the Polish studio plans to remove all placeholder AI-generated dialogues, ensuring that no AI-made content makes it into the final game.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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