Crimson Dawn, a highly anticipated role-playing game from developers who contributed to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, is taking a different approach to open-world design. While embracing the open-world concept, Creative Director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz revealed the game's world will be intentionally smaller than the industry standard.

In a recent interview, Tomaszkiewicz explained that this decision stems from the studio's desire for players to truly connect with and explore the game world in depth, rather than simply traversing vast, empty spaces.

Tomaszkiewicz shared his preference for smaller, more intimate open worlds over sprawling landscapes. This allows players to explore at a more relaxed pace, fostering a sense of discovery and familiarity, without feeling pressured to rush through the world just to find points of interest.

“It's an open world, but it's much smaller, and this allows me to have a completely different experience with it than I had with those super, super large open worlds, where because it's so big, you can't really get to know any place, so you kind of rush through it,” Tomaszkiewicz explained.  “But when it's a little bit smaller, and you can explore it at a more relaxed pace, you actually remember those places, and it feels like you know the place.  This makes you feel more attached.”

This emphasis on a relaxed pace is intriguing given Game Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz's previous revelation that Crimson Dawn's narrative unfolds within a 30-day in-game time limit, as protagonist Coen races against time to save his family from impending doom.

Addressing the potential for optional mini-games similar to Gwent in The Witcher 3, Tomaszkiewicz highlighted the time constraint, suggesting players must carefully balance side content with the urgency of the main narrative.

“This is the most important thing to me,” Tomaszkiewicz stated. “Because when you combine these elements, it makes something really unique—this sense of urgency in the game which can be amplified. Like, when you were playing The Witcher 3, you knew Ciri needed help, but you decided to play Gwent... it felt like, ‘Okay, this is a game, and it's a very cool game. But it’s a game.’

Studio Rebel Wolves strongly believes in creating a narrative sandbox for players. This means offering a high degree of choice not only within the story itself but also in terms of gameplay, including the freedom to eliminate key NPCs.  Mateusz emphasized Crimson Dawn's narrative sandbox features in an earlier interview this month.

“It is a sandbox, which means that we’re trying to maximize player choice within the game,”  Mateusz explained.  “But it’s not a sandbox that is purely focused on gameplay.  We’re trying to play to our strengths, because our previous projects were very focused on narrative, cool storytelling, interesting characters, and tons of lore to dig into.”

Crimson Dawn is currently in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.  A release date for this open-world RPG has not yet been announced.