The Blood of Dawnwalker sequels may drop the controversial time limit, director says

The Blood of Dawnwalker's 30-day time limit has divided players since launch. The mechanic restricts what protagonist Coen can accomplish, forcing choices about how to spend limited hours. Some players embraced the urgency it creates, while others chafed against it. The "Better Story Timer" mod, which eliminates the clock's impact, became the most popular Dawnwalker mod on Nexus Mods almost immediately.

Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz told Eurogamer that Rebel Wolves will take a flexible approach with sequels. "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," he said. "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."

Tomaszkiewicz acknowledged player frustration with the mechanic and the mods created to bypass it. He doesn't object to mods but encourages players to try Dawnwalker with the time pressure intact first. "We balanced it in a way that it's possible to do around 80 percent of the content with the time mechanic so it's not so bad," he explained.

He pushed back on the argument that players want to see everything in a single playthrough. "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," Tomaszkiewicz said.

Complaints about the time mechanic have quieted in recent weeks as players finished the game and discovered they had more time than expected. "There will always be people who will have a problem with that because they don't like time mechanics at all, but I think that is fine," Tomaszkiewicz said. "They can download the mod and play without it if they want."

Beyond the time mechanic question, Tomaszkiewicz teased that Rebel Wolves is "considering and researching some other crazy ideas which can make the RPG genre different." The studio is already searching for a lead writer to help craft the next chapter in the Dawnwalker saga. Rebel Wolves is recruiting for a sequel even as the original game, which sold one million copies, continues to receive post-launch support including an eventual New Game Plus mode.