The Blood of Dawnwalker Director Eyes Second IP, Following CDPR's Cyberpunk Example

Rebel Wolves hasn't even released its debut game, The Blood of Dawnwalker, yet, but CEO and co-founder Konrad Tomaszkiewicz is already looking beyond the planned saga to a brand-new IP. From the start of the game's promotional campaign, the studio has been clear that it views the RPG as the beginning of a saga. At Gamescom last year, creative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz told us, "There is this whole hidden world that we are not exploring on purpose in this first game. We want to leave a lot of fuel for the sequels and so on. But we do leave breadcrumbs and hint at these things. So yeah, we have a general idea of where we want to take [protagonist] Coen."

During a visit to Rebel Wolves' headquarters in Warsaw, Poland, I asked Konrad Tomaszkiewicz if he planned to dedicate the next couple of decades to Dawnwalker or explore other RPG subgenres. He responded, "I think that it's really smart to work how Blizzard worked before. They had Warcraft, but they also created StarCraft. It's smart because people need refreshment. And at some point we need to create a second IP." He added, "I think that, some time from now, we will do one game from [the Dawnwalker] IP and a second game from a different IP, and then back to [Dawnwalker]."

Tomaszkiewicz also touched on his frustration with working on projects that feel "the same but different." He hopes that by alternating between IPs, he and his team can avoid that burnout and stay excited about their work. "Here in the studio, the most important [thing] is to obviously create the cool stuff, but we're saying that the team [comes] first," he explained. "We want to work with the people we have as long as it's possible. We need to create the environment, starting from how they feel in the company, but also how they feel working on this particular game now."

Tomaszkiewicz is no stranger to the benefits of new IPs. A 17-year veteran of CD Projekt Red, he worked on The Witcher trilogy from 2004 to 2018 before becoming design director on Cyberpunk 2077. He spent three and a half years on that sci-fi RPG before leaving to found Rebel Wolves.

Before any second IP materializes, however, we first get The Blood of Dawnwalker, launching September 3 this year. For more, check out our preview of the RPG's consequence-filled prologue and our full interview with game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz.