The Blood of Dawnwalker’s director has signalled that the game’s signature 30-day, 3-night timer mechanic may not return in future entries, unless it can be woven naturally into the narrative of upcoming titles. Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who leads the development at Rebel Wolves, made the remarks to Europeanvideogamer, acknowledging that the time-pressure system has proven divisive among players and that the studio has no intention of forcing it into stories where it does not fit. The comments arrive as the studio appears to be only just beginning work on a Dawnwalker sequel, meaning the decision on the timer’s future remains some way off.
For those who have embraced the vampire-slaying RPG, the timer has defined much of the experience, compressing Coen’s quest to rescue his family from a grim fate into a relentless loop of daylight and darkness. The feature has clearly split the community: some players relish the urgency it injects into every decision, while others chafe at the constraint, wishing for a more open-ended approach that lets them explore the world at their own pace. Tomaszkiewicz told our network brethren that the design team is very much aware of this divide, and that the mechanic’s fate will ultimately be dictated by how well it serves the story being told.
“We Will Not Force It”
When pressed on whether the time mechanics would carry over into future games, the director was candid about the studio’s stance, framing the timer as a tool rather than a fixed pillar of the franchise’s identity. “We didn’t decide it, to be honest,” Tomaszkiewicz said. “We will play with it. If we will have parts of the story, or the whole story, to which it fits, then we will use it. If we will have stories where it does not fit, we will not force it. We will play with this system and we will try to use it to boost the urgency of some events in the game. But I’m not saying that in every game we will have the same scheme or loop – it’s not like this.”
The director also teased that Rebel Wolves are “considering and researching some other crazy ideas which can make the RPG genre different,” a statement that offers reassurance to those who feared the timer’s departure might reduce Dawnwalker to a more conventional, Witcher-like experience. Beyond the timer itself, the studio has expressed full support for players who wish to modify the system through mods, whether to extend the timer or eliminate its threat entirely. Tomaszkiewicz encouraged such tinkering, though he gently urged modders to try the vanilla experience first and confirm that the standard timer is genuinely unsuitable before altering it.
“The arguments of ‘I want to see everything in one playthrough’ I understand, but it’s false to begin with, because even in games like The Witcher, you cannot see everything in one playthrough because you have choices and consequences, and different things happen when you choose different things [excluding other outcomes],” Tomaszkiewicz added. He also touched on the other side of the Dawnwalker timer coin – that some players felt the game suffered because the limits weren’t strict or punishing enough to really make you agonise over which paths you take. Nailing a perfect balance for everyone’s likely an impossible task, or at least a very difficult one the studio’ll need a number of cracks at.
Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, Director, Rebel Wolves
The tension between these two camps – those who want a punishing sense of urgency and those who want freedom – sits at the heart of the debate. The director’s comments suggest the studio recognises that satisfying both groups simultaneously may be beyond reach, at least for now. The challenge for Rebel Wolves will be finding a middle ground that preserves the franchise’s distinctive identity without alienating either faction of its player base.
Looking Ahead
As things stand, the studio is only just embarking on a Dawnwalker sequel, so the pressure to resolve the timer question is not immediate. This breathing room allows the team to experiment with the mechanic and weigh it against the “crazy ideas” currently being developed, without the weight of a fixed release schedule looming over them. Whether the timer survives as a core feature, becomes a situational element tied to specific quests, or is replaced by something entirely new will likely shape how the series distinguishes itself from The Witcher in the years to come.
For now, the message from the director is clear: the timer is not sacred, but it is not forgotten either. Its future will be decided by the stories Rebel Wolves choose to tell, and by whether the studio can find a way to make time pressure feel earned rather than imposed. Until then, players are free to enjoy the game as it stands, mod it to their liking, and speculate on what the next chapter of the Dawnwalker saga might bring.
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