‘All You Need to Do Is Storm the Castle’: Dawnwalker Director Stresses Player Choice in PS5 RPG

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Role-playing expectations for The Blood of Dawnwalker have been high ever since its announcement, primarily thanks to the fact that the game is being spearheaded by ex-Witcher 3 creatives.

Rebel Wolves, the developers of the upcoming game, have consistently highlighted player choice and its impact on the story. However, a recent interview with Game Informer provides the clearest look yet at how the team is designing a true role-playing experience.

Honestly, the developers made a conscious decision to do things differently than a lot of Western RPGs. They didn’t want a bunch of side quests tacked onto a main storyline – they wanted everything to feel connected and important, instead of just optional things to do.

In Dawnwalker, your main goal is simple: save your family. To do that, you’ll have to infiltrate a castle ruled by a powerful vampire and defeat him.

You can try to jump right into the main story, but it’s quite challenging. Most players will likely explore the optional side quests first, where your character, Coen, can team up with allies, improve his skills, and learn more about his opponents.

So, the lead quest designer, Rafał Jankowski, told me that to actually finish The Blood of Dawnwalker, all I have to do is charge into the bad guy’s castle, beat them in a fight, and save the family. Sounds doable, right?

He explained that there are no mandatory tasks or things players have to do. Basically, all the storylines we created are available as options, but not required to progress.

I’m guessing it’ll be borderline impossible to beat the big bad without any kind of preparation, but I’m sure that won’t stop some players from trying. At least we know the speedruns are going to be fun.

According to director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, nearly all the missions in the game feel significant, even though they function similarly to side quests.

“They are creating one whole experience for the player, but we are closer to a pen-and-paper RPG where the Game Master is deciding how he wants to lead you and deciding what he wants to do. In our game, you create this choice to achieve your goal by yourself.”

Basically, there is no set of main quests here — players are left to cleave through the game however they like, with the suggestion being that no two playthroughs will ever be quite the same.

This system connects to how time works in Dawnwalker. Hours and days advance based on what you do, similar to how calendars function in games like Persona. Because of this, you won’t experience everything the game has to offer in just one playthrough.

I’m getting really excited to see the final version of The Blood of Dawnwalker. Everything I’ve read so far suggests it has a lot of promise.

Is Dawnwalker sounding good to you? Embrace your vampiric corruption in the comments section below.

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2026-05-25 23:37