Wyrdsong Interviews
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Putting BioWare, Bethesda and Obsidian in a single sentence is a certain way to raise some eyebrows. And as such, following the recent announcement of Wyrdsong by Something Wicked Games, a team staffed by veterans from the abovementioned studios, we can now check out a number of interviews with Something Wicked Games' founder Jeff Gardiner.
IGN:
Wyrdsong is a “preternatural, occult, historical fantasy” game, and it’s going to be an open world RPG. It’s definitely single-player, no comment for now on multiplayer, and players can be “any race or gender” they want. It’s set in Portugal in the middle ages, and will explore themes around questioning the nature of reality, unreliable narrators, and the stories people tell themselves about their experiences. It is, he says, a “coming together of two great RPG houses” in its Bethesda and Obsidian DNA, and thus will include choices and consequences, Obsidian shades of grey, and in-depth dialogue trees. “We really want to have big, monumental elements you can only do in single-player games where you’re really affecting the world around you, and maybe other worlds as well,” Gardiner says.
But if between this description and the Opening Night Live teaser you still aren’t sure what Wyrdsong really is, don’t worry. Gardiner isn’t 100% sure either, but that’s a good thing - it’s still quite early in development. Gardiner says that this very, very early development announcement is really more of a studio announcement for Something Wicked, but he wanted to “put a stake in the ground” in terms of the type of game he was making so he could attracted developers interested in helping him define more fully what Wyrdsong will be, collaboratively. He’s not interested in being an auteur.
Gardiner said that he chose NetEase as a backer in part because the company promised independence to Something Wicked Games. In fact, Gardiner said the company trusts his studio and has not put in place any development milestones in order to get the next tranche of money.
“We are honored to have received that from them, with no real milestones or deadlines,” Gardiner said. “They understand that we’re professionals and we know how to make games and that the best results are when a team internally sets those milestones and goals and puts out a product.”
"Wyrdsong is a preternatural, occult, historical fantasy game," Gardiner explains to me. "We're setting it in Portugal around the 12th century. Portugal is the origin of the Knights Templar - a lot of people don't realise that. There's a lot of discussion about where they actually originated. A lot of documentation seems to indicate that the Templars originated there.
"We're going to dig into that mythological history of the Templars, going into the creepy vibe of the trailer. We're going into the darker elements, the secret society and occult elements of Templar history."
Without prompting, he adds: "You're going to be able to play whatever you want, wherever gender identity, we're not forcing- This is a fantasy setting based around Portugal just for the architecture and the sweeping landscapes and the coastline and the Arid mountains."
Gardiner also cites Elden Ring as a "huge inspiration" for the Wyrdsong team, saying he initially bounced off the Dark Souls series before realizing the games weren't about punishing the player but rewarding patience. And while Wyrdsong might look nothing like Fallout, that doesn't mean the post-apocalyptic RPG won't have some influence on it, too.
"I think the focus is on the lessons, not the setting and the theme of Fallout, but the RPG nature of those games. 'There's choice and consequences' is an easy thing to say. But we want to make sure the player feels those lessons we took from those games, in terms of how to craft an unbelievable story, and yet give the player the freedom to sort of make their own decisions within that story, and sort of engage with it or not," Gardiner said.
