The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz is creating a huge role-playing game (RPG) with a team of 155 people at his new studio Rebel Wolves. He says leaving CD Projekt Red's 500-plus-person team helped create “more connections, more passion, more fire.”
“I think mid-sized and smaller teams are actually better for making games because you have more freedom,” he told me. “I wanted to do something new, unique, and push the boundaries of the RPG genre to create its own realm within the genre, closer to paper RPGs.”
What does this mean in practice? Something “more open,” he explained, where you “have more freedom and can do whatever you want.”
Play it your way
This is, of course, an ambitious goal, but with one of the best role playing games Few developers he has ever created under his belt seem better suited to realize this idea. Titled Blood from Downwalkr, The action takes place in a new fantasy world that combines elements of history and vampire fiction.
“This is not a game about vampires,” Tomaszkiewicz insisted. “There are vampires in this setting, but it's not a game about vampires. We have a much richer world and a much richer lore than a vampire-only world – we have a lot of different creatures and a nocturnal ecosystem that makes it really interesting.”
“In the game, we start with vampires because our main character is a guy who works in the silver mines and has silver inside his body,” he continued. “The antagonist wanted to turn him into a vampire, but the transformation could not be completed because of the silver. During the day, he is an ordinary person. At night, when the sun goes down, you have some vampire powers.”
As one of the main Dawnwalkers, the dichotomy between the heroes' humanity and vampirism is fundamental to the fantasy game. As a human, you can learn unique skills such as magic and experience history “in a completely different way”, while going out at night allows you to use powerful vampire abilities and experience a different version of events.
Like The Witcher, Blood of the Dawnwalker focuses on a named protagonist – in this case, a man named Cohen. “In our experience, it's easier to create emotion and shape the story around a predetermined character rather than a character you create,” the director began. “Our specialty is doing stories of pre-determined characters, and that’s what we want to do.”
Even though he is a character with his own personality, you can still shape Cohen with your choices. As an example, Tomaszkiewicz warns that players who kill a lot and collect people for blood will have to fight a very different protagonist than those who don't.
On top of that, players will also have a seemingly unprecedented level of freedom when it comes to how they approach the main story, thanks to what the developers are calling a “narrative sandbox” approach. “The way it works is when you come out of the prologue, you know where the main antagonist is and you know you need to save your family,” Tomaszkiewicz said.
“You can do whatever you want; all the quests around are optional. It's up to you how you shape your story. Whether you want to progress and try to attack the castle alone, or if you want to find allies and complete several quests, or if you want to meet other creatures of the night and find powerful spells or items that will help you in this mission, it's up to you.”
Swords and stakes
Much of the marketing for Blood of the Dawnwalker has so far focused on fencing and combat – and you may have already noticed some similarities with The Witcher 3 Here. Both games feature animation directed by Polish stuntman Maciej Kwiatkowski, although there are some key differences this time around.
Vivid battles The Witcher 3 were filled with movements based on Japanese techniques, while Blood of the Dawnwalker designed for more grounded, truly medieval combat.
“It may look similar, but it feels completely different,” he added, explaining that there will be more than five different ways to play. This ranges from the most difficult approach, which involves playing with full-directional attacks, to softer options with automatic directional blocking, which is achieved at the expense of additional stamina for each hit blocked.
The magic system now feels much more complex, with abilities designed to “change the course” of each encounter rather than “just another fireball” or something that just deals a quick burst of damage. It highlights a “powerful” ability that allows you to chain opponents together so that your sword strikes hit them all at once – although this comes at the cost of making the main enemy hit much stronger than before when it runs out.
It all sounds like a wonderful evolution of what players loved. The Witcher 3and such a strong vision could see Blood of the Dawnwalker will be one of the biggest releases of 2026.
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