Rebel Wolves, a studio founded by former CD Projekt Red veterans, is intentionally avoiding the trend of massive open-world games with their upcoming dark fantasy RPG, The Blood of Dawnwalker, choosing instead to prioritize player agency and dense, meaningful storytelling.
A Strategic Pivot from Scale to Substance
Despite the team’s pedigree—which includes key contributors to The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077—the studio is deliberately keeping the scope of The Blood of Dawnwalker contained. Lead quest designer Rafał Jankowski explains that competing on world size was never the goal.
“We were very much aware of the fact that we can’t and we don’t want to challenge other projects or companies in terms of the vastness of the world,” Jankowski tells GamesRadar+. “Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, game director and CEO, wanted to keep it smaller. The idea was to make a smaller but dense – deep – world, and focus on the player’s agency and the player’s freedom, offering them many different choices with high stakes.”
Deep Consequences and Player Freedom
Set in the 14th century, the game places players in the role of Coen, a half-human, half-vampire protagonist caught in a volatile conflict. Players must decide whether to aid their vampire kin in seizing power or fight to protect humanity. This internal struggle serves as the bedrock for the game’s non-linear design.
![The Blood of Dawnwalker — Story Trailer [4K] [subtitles available] - YouTube](https://discoverygames.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/maxresdefault-1.jpg)
“This goal, this simple goal, the idea to just put it up there in the world, available for the player no matter what happens on his path towards achieving this goal. This was what allowed us to really double down on choice and consequence elements of the game, non-linearities,” says Jankowski, who previously worked on The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine. “This is what allowed us to make NPCs killable.”
Building a Sustainable Foundation
The studio credits their disciplined approach to the current, often precarious state of the gaming industry. By focusing on a strong, open-ended structural foundation early on, Rebel Wolves believes they have created a more sustainable development path that puts the player’s experience above raw map size.
“Being smart at the very beginning of the project, starting with this strong foundation for the very open structure, was a good move that allowed us to offer our players a lot of freedom,” Jankowski adds.
Drawing inspiration from the “freedom of choice” found in Baldur’s Gate 3 and the dense world design of the classic Gothic series, Rebel Wolves is set to launch The Blood of Dawnwalker on September 3.
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