The Witcher 3 Director Says Games "Fail" By Chasing Sales

Published Jul 28, 2026, 2:42 PM EDT Joshua Robertson is an editor for TheGamer, having working in news, guides, features, and reviews since 2022. They have written thousands of news stories, ranging from industry-breaking events, to smaller, more personal community pieces, and have covered several high-profile showcases such as The Game Awards and Nintendo Directs. Joshua is considered an expert in soulslikes, horror, JRPGs and everything Final Fantasy, having written extensive coverage for massively popular online titles like Final Fantasy 14. Sign in to your TheGamer account One of the most important things a game has to do is make money. It’s a pretty cold view of the medium, but a practical one, as without money, you don’t have people to make the games. That being said, the amount of money a game has to make is subjective, and if you’re a gigantic blockbuster from the likes of Xbox or PlayStation, it has to make all of the money. If you’re the owner of an independent studio, then making all the money isn’t as much of a priority, as is the case with Rebel Wolves, the developer of The Blood of Dawnwalker, which was co-founded by The Witcher 3 director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz. Rebel Wolves Values Creativity More Than Money In a recent interview with RadioTimes (thanks GamesRadar), Tomaszkiewicz was asked how much the game needs to sell and make to be successful, to which he responded that he doesn’t want to “measure our games in millions of sales.” "I mean, you need to have money, of course, to create the next part," says Tomaszkiewicz . "But we want to create those challenges in front of us to fulfill our artistic and creative needs.” "If you are thinking about sales as you create the game, when you try to make the game to match the sales, it will fail at the start." It’s a pretty good outlook to have as the head of a studio, and The Blood of Dawnwalker has picked up enough steam to have a relatively successful launch I reckon, though it does have to contend with an extremely busy September period. Even then, it sounds as though Tomaszkiewicz would just be happy if the game made enough to earn back development costs and fund the next game, which is a pretty rare outlook in the modern gaming sphere. Here’s hoping that creativity actually triumphs over sales this time around. Released September 3, 2026 ESRB Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content Developer(s) Rebel Wolves Publisher(s) Bandai Namco Studios Engine Unreal Engine 5 Genre(s) RPG, Action, Adventure