From Elder Scrolls alum The Wayward Realms hopes to change RPGs

The Wayward Realms is being developed by Ted Peterson and Julian LeFay, who were lead developers of the team behind the original Elder Scrolls, Arena and Daggerfall games. The two formed OnceLost Games, the studio behind Wayward, and are hoping to change the RPG genre. By the description found on their recently made Steam page it’s hard not to want to buy in.

“The Wayward Realms is set on a group of over one hundred, realistically scaled, islands, known collectively as the Archipelago, where scores of factions vie for influence and power. Kingdoms strive to maintain their dominance, upstarts seek to earn a place at the top, and dynasties set generational plots into motion. Should the player earn a position of prominence, they may change the course of history. However, they must first prove their worth battling rivals, mercenaries, monsters, spirits, and demons. On their quest for fame and fortune, players will venture through strange lands, delve into foreboding dungeons, and traverse kingdoms full of humans, elves, orks, dwarves and a few other unusual races.”

The Wayward Realms boasts some pretty big features, some of which include:

• A Massive World. Way bigger than most other games you can think of. Big cities with hundreds or thousands of NPCs, deep, dark, dangerous forests, gigantic mountain ranges, sprawling swamps and marshlands, vast oceans, and more, brought to life through dynamic, procedural generation.
• Constantly Evolving Experience and Story. A virtual Game Master keeps things interesting for you, making other characters and their factions react and plot their next move based on your actions, resulting in no two players having the exact same game experience. World events have very different effects in the life of a socializing aristocrat, a thief entrenched in underworld conspiracies, a scholar collecting ancient artifacts, or whatever role you craft for yourself.
• Real Role-Playing. You’re not playing some prebaked warrior or mage, but a character class of your design, with customized skills and abilities to craft your own spells, potions, and enchantments. Want to try playing a character who is really, really outside the box? We got you.
• A World Full of Lore. We call it Wayward Realms for a reason. On the surface, things may have that familiar, medieval fantasy look, but dig a bit deeper and there’s a lot to learn. From the multiple moons in the sky, to the libraries worth of books, to the multiple cultures of each race, there is always something new to discover.

If I were to do a bit of editorializing, when I read this description I think of two other games that come to mind. The first one is Fable, where Peter Molyneux told us he would be able to make players fall in love with a video game character, or to plant an acorn and watch it grow throughout the course of the game. The other is No Man’s Sky, who’s Sean Murray was on The Late Show with Steven Colbert to show off the title. When both games were released they fell short of the tremendous goals they set out to make. Both games were very enjoyable to me, and I look forward to seeing how close OneLost Games can come to the goals it is setting for The Wayward Realms.