At Gamescom Opening Night Live, former Bethesda lead Jeff Gardiner unveiled his new studio, Something Wicked Games, and teased its debut project: an open-world, preternatural RPG called Wyrdsong.
Wyrdsong is planned as a dark, historical fantasy that takes place in a fictionalized version of Portugal in the Middle Ages. Though we don't yet know any details about the story, players will take on the role of a fully customizable protagonist and will engage with the world through RPG mechanics including combat and questing.
We also know from Gardiner that Wyrdsong will be designed to make players question reality, and will play with concepts such as an unreliable narrator, choice and consequence, the supernatural, and Templar-like conspiracies. We can also get a better idea of what to expect by taking a look at Something Wicked's talent: Gardiner's Bethesda credits include Skyrim, Fallout 3, 4, and 76. His co-founder and design director Charles Staples is formerly of Obsidian Entertainment, where he worked on Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds. They're joined by former Fallout Shelter and The Elder Scrolls: Blades technical director Ekram Rasid.
Wyrdsong is still in pre-alpha, and details such as consoles, multiplayer capabilities, and release window haven't been shared yet. We do know it's bieng made in Unreal Engine 5, and Something Wicked is currently staffing up significantly to get the project fully underway. The studio is headquartered in Maryland but is fully remote, and has received seed funding of $13.2 million from NetEase to make Wyrdsong a reality.
We got a chance to sit down with Gardiner to talk in detail about Wyrdsong, his departure from Bethesda, and his plans for Something Wicked - you can find our full interview right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
The original version of this article suggested that Paul Haban was heavily involved in the project. Post-publication IGN was informed he only contributed early in the project and was not full-time, and the reference has been removed.