Fallout and Obsidian veterans ditch open-world game plans as team shrinks to a “skeleton crew”
Wyrdsong, the next game from a team of former Bethesda and Obsidian RPG veterans, is struggling on with a “skeleton crew” after further departures from its team and a rescoping of the game.
Wyrdsong was announced back in 2022 as the first project from Something Wicked Games, a new studio helmed by Fallout 76 lead Jeff Gardiner and Obsidian veteran Charles Staples. However, progress on Wyrdsong has been hampered by the team struggling to find further financial backing.
After an initial investment from NetEase, funding ran dry 12 months ago leading to the departure of “most of” the game’s team. Now, speaking to PC Gamer, Gardiner has revealed further departures – including that of his co-founder Staples and of former Starfield lead quest designer Will Shen, who quit Bethesda to join the project.
Wyrdsong has been reshaped as a consequence of these departures, to try and make the game more managable to fund and be finished.
“We were making a big open-world RPG,” Gardiner said. “The way I have learned to do them requires a lot of people to do that, which means a lot of money that was not forthcoming in the industry.”
Wyrdsong was announced as a historical fantasy game with supernatural elements set in Portugal around the forming of the Knights Templar. It was originally envisioned as being an open-world game, but this has been dropped in favour of a map with zones that are more managable to develop and explore. A roguelite system has also been added, Gardiner revealed, which fitted with the game’s story of exploring what happened after death.
For now, Gardiner is pushing on with the project, but admits that its future looks “very tough”.
“We’re down to a skeleton crew, and I am continuing to work hard to try to find further investment or publishing offers for the game. I’m hoping to sometime this year, but we’re just trying to hang on to ride out the storm, which a lot of people thought was going to be over in 2025 and I do not see that reality at all currently.”
