Bethesda meets Obsidian in Wyrdsong, an RPG inspired by The Witch
digitaltrends.comJeff Gardiner has a storied history of working on games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Skyrim, and Fallout 76, and he is now hard at work on his next grand RPG. After leaving Bethesda Game Studios last year, Gardiner formed a new studio with Obsidian Entertainment designer Charles Staples called Something Wicked Games. After securing $13.2 million in funding from NetEase in April, Gardiner revealed the studio’s first project at Gamescom Opening Night Live. That game is called Wyrdsong, and it’s a preternatural open-world RPG about the Knight’s Templar set in medieval Portugal.
Gardiner tells Digital Trends that he thinks Something Wicked Games can make this Unreal Engine 5 RPG an enticing middle ground between Bethesda and Obsidian’s formulas. “People create this rivalry between Bethesda and Obsidian because we’ve both worked on RPGs, but I really admire a lot of the Obsidian folks,” Gardiner explains. “I’m super excited at the idea that we’re going to bring these two ideas on what makes great RPGs together and make the best version of that.”
While Wyrdsong is still in the pre-alpha phase of development, I spoke with Gardiner ahead of its reveal. I learned more about what this occult fantasy RPG middle ground between Bethesda and Obsidian will look like and why Something Wicked Games wants to make players question reality in the same way that Robert Egger’s The Witch does.
“No surprise, it’s a big open-world RPG!” Gardiner explained when asked to describe Wyrdsong. “It’s a preternatural, occult historical fantasy RPG set in Middle Ages Portugal because we want vast landscapes and unique architecture. As you saw in the trailer, we really want to get into the mythological history of the Knight’s Templar and the idea
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