The primary aim of The Blood of Dawnwalker developers is to "enhance players’ autonomy and freedom of choice," drawing inspiration from their experiences with The Witcher 3 to achieve this vision.

The devs behind The Blood of Dawnwalker are planning to make full use of their experience from working on The Witcher 3 for their debut title.

While we didn’t get a look at it in action, Rebel Wolves, the team of developers led by ex-Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 staffers, formally revealed The Blood of Dawnwalker with a pretty slick cinematic reveal trailer. Obviously cinematic trailers exist for two reasons, one being an initial attempt to drum up some hype, the other to say “hey we’re hiring and don’t have to make you sign an NDA on what you’ll be working on anymore”, but either way it was a pretty good first impression. The core premise sounds interesting too, in that it’ll include a 30-day “narrative sandbox”, meaning when you finish a quest, time will pass in-game, so you’ll have to be selective with what you choose.

Now, speaking in an interview in the latest issue of PC Gamer Magazine (thanks, GamesRadar), Witcher 3’s lead quest designer Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz and creative director on The Blood of Dawnwalker spoke about the game’s sandbox philosophy. “It’s how we allow you, the player, to interact with it,” Tomaszkiewicz explained. “So the core of it is maximizing players’ agency and freedom of choice, while, at the same time delivering the high-quality narratives that we are known for crafting in the past.”

Daniel Sadowski, design director on the project, also touched on that 30-day narrative sandbox, explaining that Rebel Wolves doesn’t want players to feel like their “dynamic” world is “waiting for the player all the time, so both action and inaction in Dawnwalker have serious consequences.” The core concept reminds me a lot of Unsighted, a great little indie game that runs on an in-game timer where you can make permanent mistakes, so I’m definitely interested in whatever Rebel Wolves is cooking up.

It’s also worth noting that Tomaszkiewicz made it clear your choices in side quests will be important too, and that “seemingly inconsequential, smaller activities in the world” may also have a big impact on the main story.

The Blood of Dawnwalker is currently planned to release on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, but you’ll have to wait a while for it, as it doesn’t currently have a release date.