Starfield lead dev leaves Bethesda for new open-world horror RPG

Starfield's lead quest designer, Will Shen, has announced he is leaving Bethesda for studio, Something Wicked Games. At the studio he will be joining other industry veterans from Bioware and Obsidian.

In his role with Bethesda he was responsible for some of the game's most epic quests. He also worked on other Bethesda titles since Fallout 3. Shen has said that his new role would "bridge the gap between the studio's narrative and design teams."

Starfield has some amazing quests both in the main story and as diversions

Shen went on to say "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 singular direction." It looks like Shen will be staying in open-world category of RPGs as Somethine Weird's debut title will be Wyrdsong, a new RPG that combines "dark fantasy settings with real-world myths and historical horrors."

Shen joins Jeff Gardiner, also a Bethesda alum. Gardiner worked for Bethesda for 15 years working as a lead producer for expansions to Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. It's likely the two will work well together on the new project.

There will be plenty of Lovecraftian horror for Shen to sink his teeth into if the announcement trailer is anything to go by. We don't know a lot about the game aside from its RPG roots. Gardiner has previously commented that he wants "this game to be available to as many people as humanly possible", but we wont' see any concrete details for a long, long time.

Beyond the cinematic one minute we saw at Gamescom Opening Night Live, we're pretty clueless as to if this will be turn-based, an ARPG or even lean in MMO trappings. Let's hope we see some more news in 2024.