A brand new RPG from The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Fallout developers, Wyrdsong, was announced at the 2022 Gamescom Opening Night Live showcase.
The announcement was accompanied by a short one-minute animated teaser trailer, featuring an ominous narration, and touting some of the talent behind the game.
It’s the debut title from Something Wicked Games, a studio founded by Jeff Gardiner (producer on Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Skyrim, and Fallout 76 project lead) alongside “game industry leaders from Bethesda Games Studios, Obsidian Entertainment, and BioWare.”
While the studio’s website is currently quite barren, it has a description that reads: “Something Wicked Games is a cooperative environment, driven by radical creativity, smart iteration, empowered decisions, and proactive scheduling.” Several key team members are also listed, including co-founders Ekram Rashid (The Elder Scrolls: Blades technical director), Charles Staples (Alpha Protocol designer and The Outer Worlds design lead), as well as a handful of others.
Speaking to PC Gamer, Gardiner described Wyrdsong as being a “dark preternatural, semi-historical open world RPG set in Middle Ages Portugal”. The Portuguese setting was inspired by Gardiner’s trip to the country prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also cites a book he read as an influence: “I started reading an alternative history book about the Templars, that postulates that they actually originated as part of the forming of the nation state of Portugal.” He continues, “And as I’m reading this book, I realized a lot of these locations or places I have visited in Portugal, so there’s some synchronicities and serendipities there.”
Wyrdsong is confirmed to be running in Unreal Engine 5, although the game is currently in pre-production, with no word on whether or not it will be single-player at the time of publication.
In other news, ArenaNet is getting ready for “a new adventure” in Guild Wars 2 following its Steam release.