Something Wicked Games snaps up former Starfield lead quest designer Will Shen
Something Wicked Games' stable of notable ex-Bethesda developers is gaining a new member. Will Shen, former design director on Starfield and veteran of Bethesda going all the way back to Fallout 3, is joining the all-remote studio as the lead content designer of Wyrdsong.
The hiring reunites Shen with former Bethesda project lead Jeff Gardiner, the founder of Something Wicked Games. In the last year, the studio has added industry veterans like Obsidian Entertainment's Robert Land, and Akil Hooper, as well as former BioWare Austin narrative designer Jessica Sliwinski.
Shen explained to Game Developer in an interview that his role at Something Wicked will be to serve as a bridge between the company's narrative and design teams. At Bethesda, his work included a mix of game writing and script implementation, which isn't the most common way for game studios to structure their narrative design workflows.
"It can be very easy....when you have a particular area of responsibility, you want to focus on just that part [of a game]," Shen explained. "But I think one of the things that makes triple-A role-playing games really come together is when it feels like the game has some kind of a singular direction."
Shen is the first Something Wicked hire we've spoken with since Gardiner founded the studio, and we wanted to know more about how the company's boldly professed values are being implemented in the team. Shen offered some additional context for his new role, shared some thoughts about Gardiner's vision of "constructive conflict," and gushed about his passion for the old-fashioned "wyrd" of Wyrdsong.
Shen's description of how Something Wicked Games intends to structure its narrative and design teams makes for an interesting snapshot of
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