‘I Have a Personal Vendetta Against Filler Content’ – How The Blood of Dawnwalker Makes Its Open World Feel Meaningful

“A bully unfastened satellite has a meaning,” Konrad Tomaszkiewicz tells me. And he’d cognize a happening oregon 2 astir that – helium directed The Witcher 3, aft all. And truthful for The Blood of Dawnwalker, his upcoming unfastened satellite RPG astatine caller workplace Rebel Wolves, it was wide that helium and his squad had to physique upon the foundations of his erstwhile project. “That was our starting point, that it needed to person meaning.”

“When I'm exploring it, tin I larn much astir the lore, much astir the communicative of this region, astir the radical who are surviving there?” helium asks, each things that marque The Witcher 3’s satellite affluent and immersive. “When I'm playing unfastened satellite games wherever I conscionable person activities which springiness maine XP and items, I don't get this enjoyment and amusive from it.”

Konrad’s brother, Dawnwalker’s originative manager Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, has akin feelings. “I person this idiosyncratic vendetta against filler content,” helium says. “I truly dislike it. I cognize it's precise hard to debar successful unfastened worlds, but I personally truly similar handcrafted customized and unsocial contented pieces. A small twist oregon astatine slightest immoderate benignant of caller accusation that it brings to the table.”

From a crippled plan perspective, then, The Blood of Dawnwalker’s unfastened satellite is simply a signifier for a expansive escapade inspired by the quests the brothers experienced successful their mind’s oculus portion playing tabletop RPGs. It’s a playable reality, not a checklist of repeatable activities. “What makes the unfastened satellite and the crippled absorbing is the connections,” Konrad says. “If you explore, you sometimes unfastened large branches of the communicative you cannot foretell and thing bully tin happen.” The effect of each this is that each quest is promised to link to something, beryllium that the communicative astatine the bosom of Dawnwalker, oregon the choler and infamy systems that powerfulness the Vampire Court that rules implicit the valley. By forging these connections, Rebel Wolves intends for your activities successful the unfastened satellite to execute that aforementioned “meaning”.

Those connections could not beryllium forged without creating a akin enslaved betwixt the studio’s plan disciplines. Gameplay and communicative teams had to beryllium agreed for the mechanics of the unfastened satellite to genuinely go a communicative experience. To find the close thematic basal for Dawnwalker’s satellite of Vale Sangora, communicative manager Jakub Szamalek looked to his ain homelands.

“Rather than peculiar humanities moments, this crippled is inspired by the wide themes and main strands of Eastern European past and folklore,” helium explains. “It's ever been a spot of migration and it's ever been a spot of conflict. There's a batch of humor that seeped into the ungraded of Eastern Europe, which is possibly wherefore it's truthful fertile and wherefore we person specified dark, acheronian stories. I deliberation it has a chiseled texture.”

The Blood of Dawnwalker isn’t conscionable the communicative of Vale Sangora, though – it’s overmuch much idiosyncratic than that. It’s the travel of Coen, a antheral hardly retired of his teenage years who present carries the curse of vampirism. His beingness volition ne'er beryllium the same, but that’s not wholly the infection’s doing. The abduction of Coen’s household by the vampire lord Brencis forces him to permission his tiny colony and research the full valley, taking him to places that he’d ne'er person seen otherwise.

“One of the archetypal large decisions was to person a monolithic Gothic cathedral successful our capital,” says Szamalek. “Put yourself successful the presumption of a medieval peasant who lived his full beingness successful a thatched cottage and past arrives successful a section city, sees this monolithic operation built retired of chromatic with intricate detail. All those acheronian scenes of suffering and executions that Catholic churches look to beryllium reverent of. [We wanted to] pat into that benignant of frequence and vibe and amplify it by a hundred.”

There's a batch of humor that seeped into the ungraded of Eastern Europe, which is possibly wherefore we person specified dark, acheronian stories.“

The Gothic “vibe” is important to Dawnwalker. Of people it is; this is simply a vampire RPG we’re talking about. But that extends acold beyond conscionable the look of the world. It influences the mode you interact with the land, and however the moonlight hours unlock caller fresh opportunities.

“When you are human, you combat differently, research the satellite differently, and attack the quests otherwise successful examination to being a vampire astatine night,” says Konrad. “At nighttime you person much options to question and explore. You tin find worldly that’s not reachable by a quality [Coen]. You tin find immoderate bully stories there, immoderate challenges oregon chill items.”

The duality of quality and vampire poses a unsocial challenge, arsenic the improvement squad needs to see each accidental successful the satellite from 2 antithetic perspectives. Is this an enactment for the day, night, oregon thing that should person aggregate paths depending connected erstwhile the subordinate wants to attack it? But that’s not the lone situation the unfastened satellite has posed. There’s besides the contented of, well, challenge. When you tin spell anyplace and bash anything, there’s nary acceptable pathway done the satellite and story, and frankincense nary casual mode to crippled a trouble curve.

“We didn't privation to bash afloat car balancing similar immoderate games do,” says Mateusz. “My occupation with this is, yes, it allows you to maximize subordinate state by exploring immoderate you want, whenever you want, but it takes thing distant from the feeling of progression. If the enemies are ne'er nether my level, they're ever connected my level, it feels similar the leveling up and gaining cogwheel is benignant of pointless.”

While Dawnwalker’s enemies bash not automatically standard to lucifer your level, the accrued situation posed by definite regions of the representation is not intended to prohibit you from exploring them earlier than the developers intended. “You're not railroaded successful this 1 close mode of playing it,” Mateusz assures me. “It's like, I tin stitchery immoderate acquisition present and determination and possibly research it successful antithetic directions than different players do. Because it's an RPG, you cod items, you go stronger and truthful connected and truthful forth. At each constituent we wanted you to person options.”

Wherever you determine to explore, Rebel Wolves wants each portion and determination to person a genuine consciousness of culture. To bash that, the developers needed to look to humanity’s ain history. That’s thing that came casual to Szamalek, who has a PhD successful archaeology. “There is thing striking astir seeing works of creation from a long, agelong clip agone and trying to grapple with what they mean and what the specificities were of the radical who painted them,” helium says. “I wanted to person that successful the game, to seizure that fascination and construe this into an acquisition that gamers tin enactment in.”

“We thought that each of the sentient monster races successful our crippled should person their ain creation that is simply a small spot different, that is unsocial to their sensitivities oregon culture,” Szamalek explains. “And the much you prosecute with that and the much you effort to recognize what they're trying to communicate, the easier you volition find it to speech to them.”

Szamalek tells maine of his fascination with Italian frescoes, the beauteous (and often eerie) enactment of historical artists that were painted straight onto bedewed plaster. They go portion of the wall, portion of the building, portion of the location’s aura. And successful The Blood of Dawnwalker, you’ll find galore past artworks that picture tales from Vale Sangora’s past past. As we saw successful an earlier gameplay video debuted arsenic portion of IGN First, cautious survey of these frescoes tin uncover hidden truths and usher Coen to peculiar items.

Like successful our ain world, these works of creation are wholly unique. “My petition was that we won't reuse them, truthful that you won't beryllium seeing the aforesaid frescoes oregon the aforesaid paintings implicit and implicit again successful antithetic ruins,” says Szamalek. “It ruins the immersion for me. I realise, ‘Oh, that's conscionable an asset. It doesn't person immoderate meaning.’ So I privation creation that gives discourse to what you're exploring and is unsocial to the determination you're exploring.”

I’ve seen small of The Blood of Dawnwalker’s unfastened satellite truthful acold – astir of my hands-on preview was spent wrong the boundaries of the prologue’s village. But what I person seen suggests a astute melding of Ubisoft’s climb-towers-to-scout-locations format with much bespoke enactment ideas, similar swamp-dwelling mini-bosses and glowing wisps that usher you to scenes of biology storytelling. As a smaller workplace operating connected a less-than-gargantuan budget, I’m not going successful expecting Rebel Wolves to person produced the benignant of simulation we’d spot successful Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 oregon Red Dead Redemption 2. But from my tiny sampling and speech with the dev team, the satellite of Vale Sangora is showing plentifulness of signs that it’s a spot worthy getting invested in.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.