Starfield's Lead Quest Designer Joins Something Wicked Games

Something Wicked Games, a new developer that's working on its first game, Wyrdsong, has added another name to its growing roster of talent. The developer announced this week that it'd hired Will Chen, the Bethesda veteran who most recently worked on Starfield as the lead quest designer. Other games Chen worked on at Bethesda include The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Fallout: 76 with Fallout 4's Far Harbor DLC in particular attributed to Chen who worked at the lead designer on the expansion. At Something Wicked Games, he'll take on a similar role as the lead content designer for Wyrdsong.

The fledgling studio announced the newest addition to its team this week following Chen's confirmation of the move that was shared on LinkedIn. Something Wicked Games has announced on social media several times when new team members joined the studio to work on Wyrdsong, but Chen's involvement at the studio is the first that got a dedicated announcement on the company's blog, so perhaps we'll see more of that moving forward now as the team grows.

"Shen comes aboard Something Wicked Games following the launch of Starfield, which he worked on as a lead quest designer," said Jeff Gardiner, the founder of Something Wicked Games who worked previously at Bethesda on multiple titles in the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series. "Bringing a wealth of AAA RPG experience, knowledge and guidance, Shen's onboarding as a lead content designer is a valuable addition to the already stellar all-star team developing Something Wicked Games' debut title, Wyrdsong."

What Is Wyrdsong?

So, what is this new game that Something Wicked Games is working on? It's the first game from the studio, but considering how Something Wicked Games is made up of people like Gardiner and Chen and others who have worked at studios like Obsidian, Respawn, and BioWare, Wyrdsong is far from the first game in these developers' portfolios.

So far, all we know about Wyrdsong comes from a brief description of the game offered back when it was first announced late last year. That preview of Wyrdsong was released alongside the teaser trailer shown above.

"Wyrdsong is a preternatural RPG that brings players to a fictionalized version of Portugal," an overview of the game explained. "Set in the middle ages and doused in occult imagery, a quest awaits players that will have them questioning their sense of reality and the choices they make. An ambitious undertaking from the team at Something Wicked Games, Wyrdsong will redefine aspects of the RPG genre as a whole."

Periodic updates on Wyrdsong have also been shared via the Something Wicked Games blog. One of the most recent ones shared this month said that the game was in a state where it featured actual gameplay now with Gardiner teasing a snippet of what that looked like, though no actual gameplay video was shared.

"Drawing inspiration from medieval Portuguese architecture and our surreal concept art, it follows the story of a templar zealot who comes upon a church desecrated in a pagan ritual," Gardiner said about one specific slice of the game. "Her decisions throughout this small slice of the game radically alter her life path as she uncovers what the church was hiding deep below. In addition, we're fleshing out both our combat and systemic AI systems, our conversation and quest tool, and other juicy bits we're not ready to pull the veil back on just yet."

Wyrdsong does not yet have a release date.