What is currently up with The Wayward Realms?

 The waiting game

I consider myself deathly allergic to the disease known as hype, and for very good reason too. Hype has bought me nothing but pain and disappointment my entire life, usually in scaling measure; the more hype, the more disappointment, the more pain. Any time I've been optimistic or hopeful or expected anything more than the worst outcome, it's been for naught and I've been more the idiot for not expecting it. Hype stinks and I hate it. Which is why I find it so damn unconscionable that I'd currently be tickled by the damn bug and on a game that we know so very little about. I'm talking stupidly little. We haven't even got any real substantive gameplay and reading some of the development teams rhetoric on the game makes me think they've actually never heard of a sandbox RPG; which is pretty freakin' worrying to hear when you're looking at a team that's proposing to make one! But beyond my utmost better judgement; I want to believe in The Wayward Realms.

If you've forgotten what that even is then I do not blame you, afterall the developers have announced the thing, released two trailers and gone radio silent across the board. That's because they're busy making a game that in their own words is going to break new grounds across the RPG genre, although by every other perceivable metric appears to just be a largely ambitious sandbox RPG. These developers are said to be key figures on the original Elder Scrolls games, which gives them quite the soapbox to launch this new project upon. Although 'project' might be putting the thing a little above its station for the moment, for as far as I can tell these folks are just a small team for the moment working on developing a working proof of concept, presumably to try and lure in some sort of publisher. Yet, even in this early stage the team went the route of gauging interest with an announcement, and you can consider myself an interested party. Potentially.

Of course as we're so early in the days of what The Wayward Realm even is, rhetoric has been quite general and geared more towards sparking the imagination than tempering a defined edge for the mind's eye. Such is a dangerous time to start dreaming, because the perception you create in your head is forever going to surpass what reality can conceive. And additionally, depending on the scruples of the developers in question, entering such a state can make you a prime target for manipulation into believing the coming game is everything you want it to be, just so long as you kick back some support to papa developer. It's something of a growing concern across the indie development space recently given the rise of Crypto concepts leaning on the already delusion-ridden crowd funding scene. I can already count two legendary developers who have cashed in on their reputation to try and grift their audience with obvious schemes; although to be fair, anyone following and trusting literally any word that comes out of Peter Molyneux's mouth at this point probably deserves to be scammed. Natural selection has clearly marked them inadequate.

All that being said, there's some tangible concept being worked on here which actually seems to lean into the wheelhouse of the development talent working on the game, so I want desperately to be optimistic this is a real idea that's just starting to spin it's wheels. The Wayward Realms is a wide open RPG that is focused more on the creation of a functioning setting and world than the journey of some nebulous fantasy hero character. Similar to games like Kenshi, the appeal of The Wayward Realms appears to come in making your character and then setting them loose in a wild world where they attempt to survive through whatever means they can. Not by scrounging for food and water, unless that's how you want to play it, but by becoming a mercenary or a pirate, or any of those other 'make ends meet' kind of professions in an exciting and opportunity writhe fantasy setting. And those are the sorts of games that I like.

What we've seen of little snippets that we can perceive to at least be early composites of gameplay features 'paper doll' style sprites walking the world space, not unlike Arena and Daggerfall had all those years ago. Again, a sensible measure given the purposed scale of a giant archipelago's worth of interconnected factions and kingdoms and traders all interacting with each other independent of the player. One of those overly ambitious titles would throw their weight around with garish claims of 'top of the line graphics' and deep engaging combat with procedural aging and death and children and- so many features that sound utterly pointless. Wayward Realms is keeping it simple and classic, playing to nostalgia no doubt, but presenting a believable vision. And I really want to believe. A more modern take on Daggerfall's style of gameplay sounds charming even to consider, and if those original directors can truly summon up that presentation in a wider and more open world space than I think excitement only makes sense.

Of course the most important question we should really be asking following a genre style of game like this one is about the world and what type of universe we're going to immerse ourselves within. I mean the fact that it's going to be fantasy is a given, it has orcs in it. But is this going to be simple high fantasy, maybe a bit edgier dark fantasy, maybe a peppier colourful fantastical fable world? I think the general sentiment seems to be shifting towards more darker fantasy universes in the vein of some of the most popular fantasy properties such as Game of Thrones, The Witcher and even popular fantasy anime like Berserk or AOT. There's an appeal to diving into some of the most grim and dark worlds that specialise in serving up everyone as supper for the cruelties of that unfair world, and a game where there are no heroes but only survivors seems like an ideal fit for a world like that. Then again, these developers have their experience in TES, which is more high fantasy without that edge; so I guess it depends on the way the winds blow for the team, if they want to try something new or iterate on the classics. (Although knowing the modding community for games like this, I imagine it'll eventually be modded into whatever style of fantasy you want it to be. Providing the game takes off, of course.) 

None of which is to say that The Wayward Realms is a sure hit flying our way. Sandbox RPGs aren't exactly plentiful because of how difficult they are to make work, and The Wayward Realms is shooting for a pretty ambitious goal even within that troubling subgenre. Crafting a working and breathing world for the player to interactive within takes a ludicrous amount of independently functioning parts, the likes of which would make a AAA studio blush, and ensuring that they shake hands in a manner that allows for dynamic and meaningful evolution can be the difference between any old Sandbox RPG and the really special ones. Kenshi has a system of factions pinned together by leader characters. Should such characters be taken out of action, their faction loses prevalence in that neighbourhood and another faction might take over. Through that system it's quite possible to upset the balance of a very violent nation of zombie-like Hiveless and have them spread over the entire map like a plague. That is the kind of reactivity Wayward Realms should be trying to replicate, the kind where we can play world breaker with the right careless actions. Like Hitman 2016- a clock of working gears waiting from the player to jam their foot and break it all.

Currently the Wayward Realms devs are spending their days slowly updating an online library of in universe lore books which seem to mostly serve as short story experiments as well as hiring a team to get together that working proof of concept of theirs. A very humble position to sit in for the moment and hopeful a portent for great things in the future. As you can likely tell I have some significant expectations rolled up into the Wayward Realms, both for what I think the game is capable of and what I want that final game to be. Whether they wanted to or not, the team have sparked a real fire of curiosity over here and I would simply love to find our more about the process they're working. Heck, I'd sign up to the team if I had any UX experience or character design work, for that's what they're looking for right now. (Actually it says they're looking for 'volunteers' but I'm assuming that's a error and they're looking for contract work at the least. Right?) Fingers crossed there's a future for this one, I want to see it.