Something Wicked Games is new studio whose developers have worked on RPGs such as Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Dragon Age: Inqusition, Fallout 4, and The Outer Worlds. The studio is led by James Gardiner who previously was at Bethesda serving as the Lead Producer for the Knights of the Nine and Shiving Isles expansions frrom The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and was also a Senior Producer on Skyrim and Charles Staples who worked on games such as Alpha Protocol as a Designer, South Park: The Stick of Truth as a Level Design Lead, and The Outer Worlds as a Design Director. The studio’s first title, Wyrdsong was revealed at Gamescom Opening Night Live.
“Our goal with Something Wicked Games is to utilize our independence and creative autonomy to create the next evolution of open world RPGs,” said Something Wicked Games CEO and Founder Jeff Gardiner. “Our first project, Wyrdsong, has been my dream game for some time now, and I’m thrilled to finally share it today.”
Wyrdsong is an occult historical fantasy RPG set in a fictionalized Portugal in the Middle Ages. The team at Something Wicked Games wants players to be challenged to question both their reality and the choices they make. The studio’s goal is to have Wyrdsong expand, question, and redefine aspects of what makes up the RPG genre. “We’re really going to dig into choice and consequence in a very deep and meaningful way that hopefully no other RPG has ever done before,” Gardiner told The Washington Post.
The game is a long way off. Currently, there are 13 fully remote employees at Something Wicked working from Maryland, Montreal, Washington, Minnesota and Florida.. The studio was created with initial seed funding of $13.2 from NetEase. “We are very, very open to employment,” Gardiner said, in reference to the studio’s search for remote talent. “Anywhere we can get the best people.”
Gardiner is a big believer in slow, sustained growth. The plan for Something Wicked is to have 30 employees by year two, and 70 employees to ship the game. Gardiner referred to that range as the “magical amount of people” for a team that can work on big projects like a triple-A developer but still have some of the flexibility of an indie studio.