Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz said this was in response to The Witcher 3 players ignoring the main story to play Gwent non-stop.

The Blood of Dawnwalker director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz has revealed that, while players will have plenty of side-activities to partake in, doing so might have dire consequences. In an interview with PC Gamer Magazine (transcription via GamesRadar), Tomaszkiewicz spoke about the game’s time limit, and how this will work in terms of gameplay.

In The Blood of Dawnwalker, players will face a time limit of 30 in-game days and nights. While this won’t be a real-time clock, players must be careful with how their time is spent since each completed quest will move the in-game clock ever closer to the deadline. Tomaszkiewicz compares this to The Witcher 3 players choosing to ignore the main story to instead play Gwent.

“This is the most important thing for me,” said Tomaszkiewicz. “Because when you put it together, it makes something really unique – this feeling of urgency in the games can be upgraded. For example, when you’re playing The Witcher 3, and you know that Ciri needs help, but you decide to play Gwent […], you feel that it’s a game, and it’s a really good game. But it’s a game.”

“And maybe if you had some resource, and you know that maybe if you don’t go, something would happen – then your thinking about this game would be different, and maybe the immersion would be better, and maybe your emotions would be different.”

The Blood of Dawnwalker‘s design director, Daniel Sadowski, also spoke about the in-game time limit, explaining that players will still be able to freely explore the world without having to get stressed out about the deadline. Its narrative, however, will emphasise the time remaining.

“We want the time system to be part of the narrative experience, and part of the whole ‘both action and inaction have consequences’ [approach],” said Sadowski. “It will work in interesting ways. It will definitely force you to make choices at some points, like what to do and what to ignore because you will also have to choose which content you want to do and which content you want to ignore to maximize your chances of defeating the main enemy.”

“But you will be able to choose between different ways to approach the problem and all that ties into the narrative sandbox again.”

The studio had previously spoken about this time limit on social media. Responding to a fan’s question about how the deadline would affect exploration and gameplay, it said that players don’t have to rush through anything since there won’t be a hard time limit.

The Blood of Dawnwalker is currently in development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It doesn’t have a release date, however. For more details, check out how its magic won’t be flashy, and how players will be able to kill even the most important NPCs that might affect the main story. As for the story itself, the studio has said that it will take players between 30 and 40 hours to finish.