Bethesda and Obsidian veterans forced to scale down their new project to survive. „There are few of us left,” say Wyrdsong devs

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In 2022, during the Gamescom Opening Night Live event, a new RPG titled Wyrdsong was unveiled, which is being developed by Something Wicked Games – a studio founded by professionals from Bethesda, Obsidian Entertainment, and BioWare studios. After its initial reveal, there wasn’t much news about the project. However, it seems that recently, the developers have found themselves in some serious difficulties.

  1. It’s about financial troubles. The project began with a $13.2 million investment from NetEase, which is not enough to create a AAA-class RPG. They were counting on attracting more investors, but it didn’t work out. The devs shouldn’t expect another payment from NetEase either, as the company has been heavily cutting costs recently.
  2. As a result, Something Wicked Games was forced to lay off most of its staff last year.

Regardless, this action did not lead to the termination of the project. Instead, it significantly transformed it. Under tight constraints with a smaller team and limited resources, Something Wicked Games had to undergo a comprehensive revamp of “Wyrdsong”.

  1. Originally, the game was supposed to have a large open world. This idea was abandoned in favor of a series of smaller locations. The developers underline that Avowed, released this year, has gone through a similar path.
  2. Furthermore, Wyrdsong has been improved with rogue-lite elements.

As explained by Jeff Gardiner, co-founder of Something Wicked Games:

Since the entire game revolved around exploring life, death, and the unknown afterlife, we felt that these concepts were a perfect fit for our gameplay style. Consequently, we reused all our existing work to suit this new direction.

Prior to scaling up the project, Something Wicked Games studio had already created numerous mechanics, technical aspects, and visual components. This means they didn’t need to begin anew and could seamlessly incorporate all these elements into their fresh game idea.

Jeff Gardiner expressed that this form of “recycling” stirred up feelings of nostalgia within him. He was a part of the Bethesda studio, contributing to numerous expansions for their large RPGs. In creating these DLCs, the developers needed to pay close attention to the budget, making it essential to discover efficient methods for reusing components from the original game.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-44383

Regrettably, an economically more feasible adaptation of Wyrdsong failed to captivate investors, causing Something Wicked Games to further diminish in size.

  1. Charles Staples, a founder of the studio and former designer of gameplay for The Outer Worlds and levels for Fallout: New Vegas, has joined Disney.
  2. In turn, Will Shen (formerly the lead quest designer at Starfield) has been hired by the team at Unknown Worlds, responsible for the Subnautica series.

Currently, the team at Something Wicked Games has been significantly scaled down. They are actively seeking investment or publishing opportunities for their project titled “Wyrdsong.

Jeff Gardiner acknowledges that the current industry situation is extremely challenging. He attributes this to market saturation, explaining that his Steam wishlist, which previously held around 20-30 titles, now contains ten times more. With so many games vying for his attention, he’s become accustomed to waiting for sales.

Apart from that, numerous gamers tend to stay loyal to multiple titles that are continually evolving. Notably, Gardiner has been part of the team creating these games, specifically contributing to Skyrim and Fallout 76.

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2025-03-19 13:02