Konrad Tomaszkiewicz loves RPGs. That can come as a shock to nobody who takes even a cursory look at his profession historical past, which noticed him rise from a junior tester all the way in which as much as the director of The Witcher 3 and its expansions over a 17-year journey with CD Projekt Pink.
Right now, Tomaszkiewicz has his personal studio, Insurgent Wolves, which is devoted to creating new video games within the style he’s cherished for many years.
“From the primary PCs, my favourite video games had been Eye of the Beholder and Betrayal at Krondor,” he reminisces. “Later it was Ultima 7, Baldur’s Gate, the primary Fallout. After which there was positively Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, the primary one. It was buggy as hell however it was an amazing recreation. So many potentialities, each vampire clan and alternative ways of play. It was actually, actually nice.”
Maybe Tomaszkiewicz’s love for Bloodlines was the distant origin level for The Blood of Dawnwalker, Insurgent Wolves’ upcoming, deeply bold vampire RPG. As in Troika’s beloved recreation, Dawnwalker makes intelligent use of vampire mythology to tell its gameplay mechanics, together with a starvation system that overrides your dialogue choices with a determined have to feed whenever you’re starved of blood. Ignore your cravings for too lengthy and you might end up involuntarily draining a significant NPC of their lifeforce, completely eradicating them from the story.
It’s programs like that which have ensured RPGs have remained Tomaszkiewicz’s favorite style via the many years. “[They] are a very powerful for me as a result of they permit me to decide on,” he says. “They permit me to really feel the consequence of my selections.”
For the Love of RPGs
Tomaszkiewicz’s fascination with the immersive qualities of RPGs started early on. “I had fairly a tough childhood as a result of my father was a surgeon, however the issue was that he was additionally an alcoholic,” he explains. “We had lots of issues which had been actually heavy and video video games had been an escape. RPGs had been essentially the most immersive as a result of once I went into the function, it was actually vital for me to unravel these mysteries or undergo the adventures. This escape was actually good for me as a result of I might overlook about actuality in these video games.”
RPGs have been so formative in Tomaszkiewicz’s life that he merely received’t think about making another sort of recreation. “I cannot go to do racing video games or shooters, as a result of [role-playing games] is one thing which is inside me. That is what I need to create.”
That brings us to Insurgent Wolves. As you enter into its Warsaw-based workplaces, you’re greeted by a wall mural that reads “A studio born out of affection for RPGs.” Its desks are manned by all method of RPG lovers, together with household (each figuratively and actually – Tomaszkiewicz’s brother, Mateusz, is Dawnwalker’s artistic director) who adopted him from CD Projekt Pink, and new allies with different previous experiences, from prepare simulators to historic reenactment. Collectively, they hope to create a medieval fantasy RPG that is “significant for gamers and the trade.”
However what does Insurgent Wolves imply by that? Relating to gamers, Tomaszkiewicz explains it is not nearly delivering an impactful story, however one thing that may encourage thought and reflection after enjoying. “After I hear from the gamers that they skilled one thing new and one thing recent, that is significant for me,” he says.
As for the trade, Tomaszkiewicz factors in the direction of The Blood of Dawnwalker’s central mechanic: time. You might have simply 30 days and 30 nights to save lots of protagonist Coen’s household from the clutches of evil vampires, with actions resembling finishing targets and fascinating in sure conversations pushing the clock ahead. Whereas it shares frequent floor with the time administration loops in video games like Persona and Disco Elysium, it’s a brand new manner of including stress and consequence to a Witcher-style RPG.
“I need to present to the trade that it is potential to do that dangerous stuff,” Tomaszkiewicz says, “and to vary the sensation of the style, to create a department of the style, as a result of I believe that there’s a lot of area and lots of unknown we haven’t explored but.”
Dangerous Enterprise
Tomaszkiewicz admits that “we had been a little bit bored” of creating what he calls “same-but-new” video video games. “Whenever you launch the one recreation and it’s a success, individuals need extra of this, however they do not need you to vary it as a result of they love this explicit thought,” he laments. “And clearly when you have got these stakeholders or the inventory market and so forth, there are the wants from these sides and it is fairly onerous to please everybody.”
On the floor, The Blood of Dawnwalker does admittedly look similar to The Witcher 3. It’s one other single protagonist RPG with a deal with motion fight, deep selections, and cinematic presentation – it seems to be same-but-new. However the group needed to create one thing that was basically very completely different. That’s the place the concept of the “narrative sandbox” got here in; Dawnwalker doesn’t have a basic fundamental quest line that takes you from prologue to closing boss. As an alternative, after the introduction you’re free to discover the world and full its many, many quests in any order you want. Some overlap, making a deeper sense of place and politics. However none are necessary – you may merely go proper from tutorial to the ultimate encounter should you actually need to.
“Our mission must be to ship not solely a cool expertise, which is ‘secure’ as a result of we all know how to do this, however we also needs to discover these areas which we aren’t consultants in but, and to attempt to ship some recent emotions,” insists Tomaszkiewicz. “Clearly right here the danger is larger, however I believe that it is price it as a result of afterward you’ll be remembered within the trade, since you created one thing actually new. Perhaps sooner or later another individuals will attempt to do the ‘narrative sandbox’.”
I ask Tomaszkiewicz if Dawnwalker’s narrative sandbox and time loop had been issues he might have achieved at CDPR or one other giant, established studio. “I believe I could not,” he says. “When you have got the large corporations which have established IPs, it is actually onerous to vary one thing or do one thing actually revolutionary as a result of it is at all times about being same-but-new. You already know the playerbase needs nearly the identical, however new, compared to doing one thing actually recent and new. I believe that Cyberpunk was this type of soar for CDPR, however it’s actually onerous to undergo with concepts like this within the massive corporations. And right here, when I’ve my very own firm, I can, with the commerce [team] and my [development] group, make our personal errors or our personal choices of loopy stuff we need to create.”
Past Dawnwalker
Contemplating Tomaszkiewicz’s frustrations with a improvement system that forces studios to make overly-similar video games, I ask about his imaginative and prescient for the way forward for Insurgent Wolves. The Blood of Dawnwalker is deliberate to be a saga, however received’t that imply growing iterative sequels which might be “same-but-new”?
“I believe that it is actually good to work how Blizzard labored earlier than,” he says, pointing again to the Californian studio’s early days. “That they had Warcraft, however in addition they created StarCraft. It is good as a result of individuals want refreshment. And in some unspecified time in the future we have to create a second IP. I believe that, a while from now, we are going to do one recreation from [the Dawnwalker] IP and a second recreation from a distinct IP, after which again to [Dawnwalker].”
Tomaszkiewicz notes that he needs to work together with his group for so long as potential, and he recognises that a part of the problem is creating an setting that may foster artistic happiness. He believes that making a second IP will (no less than partly) repair the issue of builders stifled by engaged on “same-but-new” tasks.
Levelling up the RPG
As a life-long fan of role-playing video games, Tomaszkiewicz has watched the style change in real-time. “Due to this evolution of instruments and of tech, you are able to do issues quicker, you may develop video games with greater phrases, with the options you could not do someday in the past,” he says. “The good instance is Crimson Desert, as a result of the quantity of options they’ve is insane! And I am laughing that, if it might be potential for me to have so many options like they’ve, mixed with the story we are able to inform, we might create a holy grail.”
Such a lofty aim raises the query of AI, which the tech giants of the world promise can ship super-human productiveness. Tomaszkiewicz confirms that Insurgent Wolves has used generative AI as a part of Dawnwalker’s improvement – synthetic voices had been used throughout the early levels of design to create a form of draft model of cutscenes and dialogues, which allowed the group to work out if the script labored in follow earlier than the solid of actors had been introduced in to file their performances. The closing model of Dawnwalker will function no AI belongings in any respect, although.
“I believe that corporations ought to use AI, however in the way in which which helps individuals to work, not change the individuals,” emphasises Tomaszkiewicz.
He makes use of Insurgent Wolves’ in-house QA group for example of how AI instruments could possibly be used to enhance improvement. “They generally have the duty that they should, for instance, undergo the terrain and examine if there aren’t any holes within the terrain and that the collisions are good,” he explains. “On the identical time, they might play the hunt and inform me in the event that they just like the characters or if the gameplay loops are enjoyable sufficient, or if the timings within the fight may be higher or no matter, proper? And my method is that I really feel that we should always use AI to assist our individuals to work and take from them these duties that are annoying and irritating and permit them to do that extra enjoyable work, which is required, truly.”
That’s not a actuality for Insurgent Wolves in the mean time, and so the developer’s 150 employees should fastidiously deal with the issues which might be price spending time on. Given money and time, such a group might nearly actually obtain that “holy grail” of Crimson Desert’s feature-packed world grafted onto The Blood of Dawnwalkers story, with none want for AI. However the actuality of recreation improvement is that there are money and time constraints, and that may form a studio’s outlook and drive.
“We now have right here philosophy that we create options which assist the story and the texture we need to create. We desire to create much less options, however [make them] extra polished,” Tomaszkiewicz explains. “From my perspective, all of these things must have which means within the recreation, or I have to have the motivation to make use of them.”
However Tomaszkiewicz’s actual motivation for pushing ahead the style is one thing he shares with most of the world’s most outstanding RPG builders. All of it goes again to the place the style started: on the tabletop, with 20-sided cube and a dungeon grasp.
“We’re studying methods to give much more freedom to gamers,” he says. “Not solely within the gameplay and exploration of the world, but additionally the story parts. Like in quests, permitting you to finish your aim in lots of, some ways. It is shifting the online game nearer to pen and paper RPGs, and I believe that that is the holy grail of what we need to obtain. To provide the freedom and offer you immersion, which lets you expertise – emotionality-wise and feeling-wise – the video games otherwise.”
For a lot of, Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 has set an nearly not possible excessive bar in terms of that sort of ambition. However, from what I’ve seen of The Blood of Dawnwalker thus far, its dedication to selection and stunning penalties, in addition to its bold “narrative sandbox” design, signifies that it stands an opportunity of capturing the magic of an unforgettable D&D session. And if all of it goes properly, Tomaszkiewicz may have helped set up yet one more Polish studio amongst RPG royalty.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s Government Editor of Options.