Something wicked this way comes, indeed. A team of game industry leaders from Bethesda Games Studios, Obsidian Entertainment, and BioWare have formed Something Wicked Games under the leadership of former Bethesda veteran Jeff Gardiner.
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Gardiner announced the new studio at Gamescom 2022 Cologne. The company has already secured backing from the Chinese tech giant NetEase, with $13.2 million funding. The veteran producer believes NetEase will give the studio the creative space it needs and will not rush them with deadlines or interfere with the innovative process.
Something Wicked announced that they’re working on a new open-world role-playing game named Wyrdsong. With the financial help of NetEase, Gardiner states that the game will have AAA properties.
A teaser trailer was made for the game as an announcement at Gamescom; other than that, there’s not much information about the project right now. Wyrdsong is being developed using Unreal Engine 5 and is still in pre-alpha. The game’s setting will be the middle ages in Portugal, with dark and supernatural themes surrounding the otherwise realistic setting.
The Wyrdsong team is composed of only 13 people at the moment. Still, Something Wicked is growing every day by hiring more capable individuals. Gardiner believes the team’s numbers should reach around 60 or 70 people as he states that the company is “Very, very open to employment from anywhere we can get the best people.”
Gardiner explains that the game’s name draws strength from the word “wyrd,” which means destiny or fate in Old English. The game will focus on choice, and the game industry veteran believes the studio can explore this theme more than any other has ever done before.
Gardiner left Bethesda in August 2021 in an attempt to cool off and spend some personal time. He explains his time off and the decision to return with these words:
“I decided to take a break from the industry to see if the fantasy of just playing games all day was going to be fulfilling, but this whole time I was doing that, this game idea was building, building, building.”
Wyrdsong will attempt to become a AAA title without the time limitations, pressure, and over-expectation one typically suffers. Gardiner admits that there’s no rush and that they will prioritize quality and originality over deadlines. RPG lovers should keep an eye out for updates on this potentially ground-breaking new project.
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