The Blood of Dawnwalker, the upcoming debut project from former CDPR developers, has a “limited time” quest system that reminds me a lot of the Persona and Metaphor games.
Dawnwalker ticks a lot of boxes for me. It's a great open-world RPG from a team of genre veterans under the Rebel Wolves banner, has vampires that look legitimately scary, and apparently borrows from some of my favorite JRPGs. I was instantly intrigued by its limited-time main story when I found out about it during the game's reveal stream, but I was working with fairly limited information. I still am, but it's a little less limited now thanks to some new tweets from the developers.
It's true that limited-time missions and stories in video games can be a pain if they're designed in a way that makes you feel rushed and stressed. Fortunately, the official Dawnwalker Twitter account confirmed in response to a fan that “the game itself does not have a strict time limit and does not require you to rush.”
Following up on this, Mateusz Greiner, Senior PR Manager at Rebel Wolves, added: “In short, the player has a limited time to complete the main objective; exploring the world does not advance time, but each mission does. Play a very important role.” in our narrative setup, and we'll expand on what it means later.”
To me, that just smacks of Persona, which pretty much lets you explore the world as much as you want until you're ready to move on, at which point the game clock ticks forward. It's still not entirely clear how Dawnwalker handles the whole system, especially given the day/night cycle, but I like the way it sounds so far.
Greiner confirmed that “all missions” move the game's timer, but assured that “it will always be clearly telegraphed to the player if an activity advances in time (and by how much); players will have control over it.”
Finally, to my relief, Greiner said that “the game won't necessarily end” when the timer runs out after 30 days and nights of play, but he didn't elaborate further.
Blood of Dawnwalker was finally fully revealed this week, almost two years after the formation of Rebel Wolves, and it looks like it will be worth the wait. Again, I'm a fan of creepy RPGs and vampires in particular, but from the four-minute cinematic it feels like quite a production. I'm excited to see more gameplay this summer.
In the meantime, here are the best role playing games you can (and should) play right now.