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Narrative director, co-founder of Rebel Wolves, and a writer at heart, Jakub Szamałek joined us just weeks before the release of The Blood of Dawnwalker to discuss making choices matter in games, the ambiguity of modern villains, the best way to experience branching narratives, his origins as a novelist, and how fantasy continues to evolve across new formats and settings.
"Hi Gamereactor friends, this is Celsius 232 in Avilés, Asturias, Spain, and we've been talking with many authors of several genres and formats, and this is interesting because you're both an author and a video game developer, and we've been talking about fantasy and science fiction, and you, before working on video games, you were an author of black novels, and we can talk about that next, but before that, There is the elephant in the room. You just announced that The Blood of Dawnwalker is gold. It's going to be released on September 3rd. We were to your offices. We paid you a visit at the Rebel Wolves offices in Warsaw, interviewed Mateusz and Konrad and several of the leads. So we know a lot about the game and we're looking forward to the release. And I wanted to ask you about the narrative and the story, of course, a little bit more. How do you think, how much you guys managed to increase the sense of repercussion with this game's systems and interwoven stories? Quite a bit. You know, choices and consequences is our bread and butter."
"This is what we enjoy as gamers, but also as creators. And when we started working on The Blood of Dawnwalker, we knew what we did right in other projects. We knew what we want to keep, but we also knew what we want to develop further. and that feeling of freedom and the consequences of your choices was something we didn't want to boost even further. And just to give you one example, in The Blood of Dawnwalker we have this blood hunger mechanic. So each night when you turn into a vampire, you start yearning for blood. And it's up to you how you satisfy that hunger. You can, you know, run around looking for rats and rabbits if you're, you know, a vegan vampire. I didn't know that. or you can only drink from your enemies or you can, you know, try to ignore it. But if you don't pay attention to your blood bar and you go into a dialogue with any NPC whatsoever, you will end up draining them dead because you lose control of your character. Even your friends. Even your friends. So you can ruin all the questlines for yourself if you don't manage that. And of course we hope that most players will be responsible vampires, but I think the realisation that it can happen is enough to immerse even further into the story because you feel that what you do matters, even if it's just managing your vampire hunger Let me ask you about one of those vampires, it's Brencis, and in it starts kind of, of course he's visceral and violent, but he saves you, I mean both you, Coen, and your little sister at the beginning of the game, but then he's like the main villain, so I wanted you to elaborate a little bit on this moral ambiguity for this specific moment. What can we expect without getting into spoiler territory?
And so he is ruthless, like you said, but he's not bad for the sake of bad. So his idea was to swoop into the valley when it was mired in all sorts of problems and chaos and become the feudal ruler of the valley. And in order To be a ruler, you have to have something to offer. If people are going to accept your power, you have to give them something in return. And he very much does. He saves people from the plague, he offers safety. but of course he demands quite a bit, not money, like he doesn't care about gold, but he demands your blood and beyond that I think your dignity, like you have to accept the role of vampire cattle in order to function in this society. and a lot of people in Vale Sangora do, and they actually enjoy being subjects of a vampire. And I think this creates an interesting space for players to explore, and they will be surprised quite a few times because they might encounter people who, you know, should be opposed to the vampire ruler but they really aren't."
"And they might also start asking themselves questions as to whether this kind of ruler is really that much worse than the feudal medieval standard, that was the case in Vale Sangora before the coming of Brencis. And I think, again, not to spoil much, but you can expect Brencis to act logically and to respond to your actions as well. And you might get to talk to him a little bit at some point in the story too. Interesting. And I wanted to ask you how do you like to play the game narratively yourself? When we were at your offices, we saw these many choices we could make, mostly... did we want to save Coen's mother or not? And then your colleagues told me that you can try and save the whole family throughout the game, but perhaps then you have to give in some of the worst powers here. So not just, I guess you've played it in many different ways to sort of enjoy the story differently, but you personally, how do you like to play it? Because the story is going to fold out as you wish. So how do I play my own game? In terms of narrative. How do you want the story to click and how do you feel it's a good run for you? Okay, so first of all, I want to emphasize that, like you said, What we wanted to do is give players as much freedom to create their own stories. So we are kind of inviting you to be our collaborators and directors of your own experience. When I play the game, first of all, I open all the barrels and all the crates and all the boxes and I check every nook and cranny. So I always enjoy seeing what other people on the team contributed. So I love interacting with the arts in the game. I love tinkering with all the systems. So I'm a very slow player. It takes me forever to clear a quest. but when it comes to interacting with the people, I think I'm like most players, I just don't want to hurt anyone, I want to be good, and so there will be some traps and some unexpected consequences, but I know them, so I can steer clear of them and be the good guy, I guess, or as much as the game allows you to. This mechanic that you've mentioned before, both the hunger and how branched your story is and how it weaves, etc. It feels fresh. It felt fresh to me. We will see with the final game. But talking more broadly about video games and the things you've seen in the past or recently, Where do you think this is going? What do you think we will see more and more that is a fresh, innovative mechanic in terms of branching narrative or interactive storytelling in the near future? Well, who knows, right? Because the video game industry is so huge and there are so many amazingly talented people working on different projects at the same time. I think what is exciting to me is that I feel that our medium matures, that people who have grown up playing games are now making games, that we've had our chance to really figure out how to tell stories in games. So I'm hoping and expecting even more interesting ways of using games' unique strengths, such as the element of choice, such as the very close identification between the player and the protagonist, such as the consequences systems. And I'm really curious to see people's reaction to what we did with the time system, and I mean players, but also fellow game creators, because I do think it's an amazing way of reintroducing and so on."
"and many of the authors we've met here at Celsius, you know, both fantasy and science fiction, they seem to be interested in trying their hand at video games and then the very specific type of narrative there is here. Of course, you walked that path yourself. In the past, you had this, as I said, Black Novel trilogy set in Greece. How can you tell me it shaped you and perhaps it helped you become a narrative sort of an interactive storyteller in video games coming from static books. Yeah, I think it really helps to dip your fingers in different areas. And I think, you know, what distinguishes writers is that they tend to be very curious people. Like, they tend to be obsessed, you know, with a story or with a concept. And I'm obsessed with the differences between the media because, you know, I've done books, I've done games, I have some experience with movies. and each of them demands different things from you. And I really enjoy answering that call and adjusting my skill set to what the medium demands of me. And I think because I have worked on books prior to video games, I'm more attuned to what makes video games unique. and so I can lean into it more. And what I really love about video games is that I feel like it's still new territory, like we still get to explore and find new solutions, and because of what the technology keeps offering, because it changes all the time, is that no two projects are exactly the same, and you're always struggling to find new solutions, new tricks, which can be challenging, but it's very satisfying when it does play out well. And finally, you recently announced that The Blood of Dawnwalker is just one story within one universe that can transcend years, that can be retold again and again in a different way, different setting, perhaps even in the future or in contemporary times. And you've done sci-fi in the past. You know, of course we don't know where this will lead us and Coen and Coen's successors, but what can you tell me about this, about perhaps transcending traditional dark fantasy and entering other settings, other sort of ideas? Yeah, so what I'm really excited about is the concept of a saga, because I think in the video game world we have a lot of games with sequels, but they don't necessarily create an overarching plotline. So you have a game, it's a great game, and then there's another great game that follows, and there are some common elements, but they don't... adapt to lead to some, you know, overarching conclusions. I mean, it did happen in the past, of course, but it's not that often these days that we see it. And I love the idea of seeing, you know, how Coen changes as a character as he gains experience, as he goes around the world and learns more about, you know, the hidden forces at play. I love the idea of taking him through different places and also kind of seeing how much of him will stay universal and how much of his character will change, and also gathering players' choices along the line and using them to then create unique branchings and further titles to reward players who have stuck to this use from the very start. So there's a lot that we are hopeful to do there and to truly shape the series into something that feels like an epic series of novels that aren't bound by, you know, genre definitions because, you know, dark fantasy is great and that's what Dawnwalker 1 is, but in the future we might, you know, explore other areas With our creative interests at heart, we want to do things that excite us, that are fresh and get us going, but also in the interests of players."
"We want to keep surprising them and offering them the best experience we can possibly create. So perhaps science fiction is not out of the question, it could add to the fantasy as well? Nothing is out of the question at this point, so this is just the first chapter in what I hope to be a long, long exciting saga that will mature together with the players. We are looking forward to playing that first chapter in just a month's time, so thank you so much for your time Jakub, enjoy your final day at the Celsius! Thank you so much!"
