A couple of months ago, during the Summer Game Fest period, developer Rebel Wolves made an appearance to confirm the anticipated The Blood of Dawnwalker is simply the beginning of a wider series that isn't confined to one period of time or setting. At that moment, it was revealed a follow-up project is being explored that is set in a much more modern time period, a drastic shift from the medieval setting of the original title launching in September, and which recently went gold.
Since this reveal, Rebel Wolves has also affirmed The Blood of Dawnwalker sequels will be looking to jump to new time periods, in an Assassin's Creed-like manner, something we now have a new update about.
During our time at Celsius 232 recently, we had the luxury of being able to speak with Jakub Szamałek, known for being the narrative director of The Blood of Dawnwalker but also the co-founder of Rebel Wolves. In the wider (and locally subtitled titled) interview you can see below, Szamałek told us about future plans for the series and how it enables the development team to truly flex their creative skills.
"What I'm really excited about is the concept of a saga. In the video game world we have a lot of games with sequels, but they don't necessarily create an overarching plotline. So you have a game, it's a great game, and then there's another great game that follows, and there are some common elements, but they don't... adapt to lead to some overarching conclusions.
"I mean, it did happen in the past, of course, but it's not that often these days that we see it. And I love the idea of seeing how Coen changes as a character as he gains experience, as he goes around the world and learns more about the hidden forces at play. I love the idea of taking him through different places and also kind of seeing how much of him will stay universal and how much of his character will change, and also gathering players' choices along the line and using them to then create unique branchings and further titles to reward players who have stuck to the series from the very start.
"So there's a lot that we are hopeful to do there and to truly shape the series into something that feels like an epic series of novels that aren't bound by genre definitions. Dark fantasy is great and that's what Dawnwalker 1 is, but in the future we might explore other areas. With our creative interests at heart, we want to do things that excite us, that are fresh and get us going, but also in the interests of players. We want to keep surprising them and offering them the best experience we can possibly create."
As Celsius 232 is a fantasy and science-fiction festival, we inquired specifically whether a lack of being "bound by genre definitions" means sci-fi is out of the equation of the Dawnwalker series or not, to which Szamałek confirmed the following.
"Nothing is out of the question at this point, so this is just the first chapter in what I hope to be a long, long exciting saga that will mature together with the players."
So potentially there is a world where a Dawnwalker game takes us into the stars or into a neon-drenched cyberpunk metropolis. For the time being, we'll just have to see what Rebel Wolves has in store for us, well beyond The Blood of Dawnwalker, which launches on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on September 3. We recently had the chance to go hands-on with the game and you can read our full and detailed preview here.
