Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, the former game director of The Witcher 3 and game director of Cyberpunk 2077, is starting his own studio called Rebel Wolves. The new team includes developers who previously worked on Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher series.
Konrad Tomaszkiewicz
The new studio is called Rebel Wolves. Tomaszkiewicz will fulfill the role of CEO and game director. On the website, the team says that it has decided to set up a new studio to be able to work under its own conditions. According to the statement, the importance of the team, camaraderie and fun are central, because “happy people make great games.”
In response to questions from GamesBeat, Tomaszkiewicz says that the move to an independent studio was mainly motivated by chasing your own dreams. “CD Projekt RED works with established intellectual properties and we wanted to create our own universe based on our preferences and needs. We felt we needed a separate place to do this,” said Tomaszkiewicz. He emphasizes his pride in CD Projekt RED’s past, underlines that it is a great company and wishes the Polish developer all the best.
The Rebel Wolves team says they want to revolutionize the RPG genre. It wants to take the genre one step further. “We don’t want to create another game; we want to create the game.” The studio is currently working on a story-driven RPG saga for PCs and next-gen consoles. It should be an AAA title based on a dark fantasy and with the necessary stories and emotions. The title will be part of a saga and will be built based on the Unreal 5 engine. Further details are not yet available.
Tomaszkiewicz and Jakub Szamatek, the current narrative director and writer at the new studio, emphasize that they will not be chasing trends and numbers. They see games as a great medium to tell stories in which player choices and immersion are very important elements. The developers do not promise in advance that their game will provide a certain number of hours of gameplay. They say they want to focus on quality. Every quest and dialogue will be “handcrafted” so that players will remember it long after completing the game.
Rebel Wolves is in talks with potential business partners and according to Tomaszkiewicz there are already some great offers, but he says he will take the time to make a decision. That is possible, because the new studio is self-funding and currently has no money problems.
Currently there are about eight people on the Rebel Wolves website who are members of the team. In addition to Tomaszkiewicz and Szamatek, the studio also includes design director Daniel Sadowski, animation director Tamara Zawada and art director Bartlmiej Gawel. Szamatek has worked on The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and Thronebreaker, Zawada has worked on The Witcher 3 and Shadow Warrior 2, and Gawel brings experience from the three games in The Witcher series.