The Blood of Dawnwalker is getting quite a hefty update in October, with a new difficulty option, combat changes, and more – and perhaps even New Game Plus, if we're lucky.
That might be pushing it, though – but the update is a significant one, from the sounds of it. Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, who has the likes of The Witcher 3 under his belt from his time at CD Projekt Red, reveals as much in a new interview with Eurogamer.
First, he teases the new difficulty mode, which is actually an easier option rather than a more difficult one. And, honestly, as someone invested in The Blood of Dawnwalker myself, I get why.
"We will introduce an additional difficulty level, but an easier one, because many people are asking for a more easy difficulty," as Tomaszkiewicz says.
"The Story mode which we have right now will be a different difficulty… and we will add a new Story mode which will be even easier for people who don't want to experience the combat, they just want to learn the story and go through the game without this gameplay challenge."
As for the old "Story mode," the lead says "we will call it Demanding or something like this" instead.
Combat is similarly being tweaked, with Rebel Wolves moving away from its, erm, controversial target-locking system. You know, the same one that swaps who you're fighting if you use a stun ability (like my favorite, chucking a bunch of sand in an enemy's eyes).
The director explains that this feature is "my fault," and actually "worked differently" initially. In October, they'll be swapping back to that old system because "people complain" about the current one (guilty as charged).
"There will be three hits you need to take off this stun. We will see how people will react to that because, as I said, it can create another bad feel, but we will see. Maybe people will switch between targets fluently and if they want to just stun, it will be fine, and if they want to stun and hit a few times, it will be also fine."
Then, there's the issue of performance on PC – but Tomaszkiewicz does admit that taking things from 60 frames per second to 120 isn't a huge priority… although Rebel Wolves is still on the case.
"It's not a shooter – it's not a game where it's so important. But people want to have good performance or performance above good: it's fine. We're working on it and we will still work on it."
There's also the whole running away from combat thing, of course. As it is now, it's pretty dang difficult to get away from enemies – but it won't be for much longer.
"Right now we're doing the fix where when you run or escape, you will ignore the nav mesh and it will be fluid; it will not be clunky," as Tomaszkiewicz states. "We're working on escaping from combat and running in combat and it will be a big change for people."
And, what's more, enemies will be less spongy as Rebel Wolves addresses balance.
There's quite a bit to this new The Blood of Dawnwalker update, it seems, and it's not too far off. Tomaszkiewicz himself says "it's quite close" and "will be somewhere in the beginning of October," concluding, "It will be the big patch which will deliver a lot of upgrades for people."
Interested in one of this year's biggest new games yourself? Be sure to read through our The Blood of Dawnwalker review to learn more.
