The Blood of Dawnwalker's creative director explains how the RPG's narrative sandbox works: 'the core of it is maximising players' freedom'
I traveled to Rebel Wolves recently to speak to key developers about its debut RPG, The Blood of Dawnwalker, which promises a dark fantasy cinematic adventure involving vampires deep within the Carpathian Mountains.
As well as speaking to the game's director, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, the man who directed the now legendary fantasy RPG, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, about why he left CDPR and why he decided to cast a half human half vampire as the game's protagonist, I also spoke to the game's design director, Daniel Sadowski about the game's unique 'time as a resource' mechanic and creative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz about the studio's 'narrative sandbox' approach to game design.
“So narrative sandbox refers to the way we craft our content,” says Mateusz. “It’s how we allow you, the player, to interact with it. So the core of it is maximising 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. Dawnwalker is not going to be a game where it’s a pure sandbox, where you’re just focusing on the gameplay. We do want you to experience these moments with the world of the characters, and the emotions that these situations can evoke, and so on, and so forth. But, at the same time you are looking for ways of maximising freedom as you do.
«Narrative sandbox informs not only the main quest—it also informs all the other types of content that we have. We are trying to make tie-ins from these. You know, you might encounter seemingly inconsequential, smaller activities of the world, but we are trying to make them tie into this main narrative. It kind of feels like a synergetic approach where all this content helps each other to be this cohesive whole. It’s not like there is the main story, and there are just sidequests that are unrelated to it. All of it kind of overlaps a little bit, if that makes sense.»
Daniel, as the game's design director, then expands on the narrative sandbox approach,
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