The Blood of Dawnwalker is the new game from The Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz’s Rebel Wolves studio, developed by a team made up of both ex-CD Projekt Red talent and other developers. While it has many interesting new ideas, it does look rather similar to The Witcher 3 in several ways, and so I had one significant question to ask when I recently visited the studio’s HQ in Poland: is there a Yen and Triss situation here?
Fans of The Witcher 3 will know exactly what I’m talking about. As protagonist Geralt, your affections are torn between two women: Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt’s lover during the era of the original Witcher novels, and Triss Merigold, a sorceress with whom Geralt forms a relationship with across the first two Witcher games. As with the best RPG romances, your relationship with whomever you choose develops over the adventure as your bond strengthens.
So, does The Blood of Dawnwalker have romance options? “There are,” confirms Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, the project’s creative director.
“It is, of course, up to the player if they want to engage with them or not,” Tomaszkiewicz explains. He stops short of revealing which of the game’s characters will be potential love interests for protagonist Coen, but says that “all of them are custom tailored plot lines, so you can expect high quality writing and high quality engagement with these characters.”
There is, however, a twist to Coen’s romantic life that Geralt never had to worry about: time. If you’ve read any of our coverage of The Blood of Dawnwalker, you’ll know the entire game is on a calendar system, and that completing objectives and quests pushes time forward. You have just 30 days and 30 nights to save your family from evil vampires, and so any time you spend developing a romantic plotline is stealing time away from rescuing your family.
“So if you’re trying to min-max the amount of time, maybe [doing romantic quests] might not be the most reasonable thing for Coen to do,” Tomaszkiewicz says with a smile.
Tomaszkiewicz emphasises that romance is “not the main focus of the game”, largely because of that aforementioned situation with his family. That, and also because he’s been transformed into a half-man, half-vampire. That kind of a curse has to keep a man pretty busy, after all.
“But we definitely wanted to include it,” he added. “We believe that it’s a thing that a lot of players are looking up to. And it is also another dimension where we can flesh out Coen’s character.”
It won’t be too long before you have to choose between romance and family – The Blood of Dawnwalker launches later this year on September 3. To learn more, check out our preview of the RPG’s consequence-filled prologue, as well as our interview with game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s Executive Editor of Features.
