Unfazed by GTA 6 Hype, Witcher 3 Director Ready to Launch The Blood of Dawnwalker Head-to-Head
At Rebel Wolves, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz doesn’t just command the room—he cools it, steering the studio’s first big swing with ice-calm authority and big-league ambition.
Release-date chicken is back on the menu, and most studios are swerving. One guy who is not: The Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz. He is about to ship his new studio Rebel Wolves' first game, an open-world RPG called The Blood of Dawnwalker, and he sounds perfectly calm about the GTA 6 asteroid headed for the calendar.
The recent panic: Silksong drops, indies scatter
We just watched this movie with indies. In September, Hollow Knight: Silksong surprise-launched and a bunch of smaller titles scrambled out of its way. Clover Pit, Demonschool, and even Bennett Foddy's Baby Steps all shifted release dates to give Team Cherry's long-awaited sequel some breathing room.
The AAA mood: pure dread around GTA 6
On the big-budget side, the fear is louder. One analyst called launching near GTA 6 'suicide.' The Helldivers 2 CEO warned it will 'blot out the sun in a way that is unimaginable for the rest of us.' And the design lead on Saints Row says no open-world studio can really compete with Rockstar.
- Analyst comparison: 'going up against GTA 6' equals 'suicide'
- Helldivers 2 boss: GTA 6 will 'blot out the sun'
- Saints Row design lead: no open-world dev can match Rockstar
Konrad Tomaszkiewicz: not flinching
Then there is Tomaszkiewicz, who directed The Witcher 3 and now runs Rebel Wolves. The Blood of Dawnwalker is set to arrive next year, and he told GamesRadar+ he is not losing sleep over the idea of sharing a calendar year with GTA 6 (whenever Rockstar actually plants that flag).
'I think that the whole industry is observing GTA, because it is the GTA. This is the massive game with massive marketing and so on. And I mean, as a player, I am fine with it. I will play for sure. As a developer, it is also fine. We will see.'
Translation: he respects the juggernaut, he is definitely going to play it, and he is still shipping his own game rather than hiding from it. Refreshing stance, honestly.
Small by design
One more wrinkle from Tomaszkiewicz as Rebel Wolves heads toward launch: he does not want the studio to balloon in size. His take is that the team, as it stands, is more effective than bigger ones. That is a bold position while everyone else is either scaling up or hunkering down, but it tracks with the confidence he has about putting The Blood of Dawnwalker out there next year regardless of when GTA 6 lands.