OnceLost Games, a studio established by Bethesda Game Studios veterans, announced the launch of their expansive fantasy RPG, The Wayward Realms, a spiritual successor to The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, on Kickstarter.
Just hours into the crowdfunding campaign, contributions for The Wayward Realms have already topped $120,000 of the $500,000 required by OnceLost Games for one year’s worth of development on an early-access version.
This early access version will feature preliminary versions of main systems and a single island spanning 140 square kilometers. The team hopes to use this version to secure a publisher who will finance the rest of the game’s development.
The final version of the game will cover a dynamically generated open world of about 500,000 km² with thousands of cities and dungeons, meaningful decisions and their consequences, as well as an unprecedented level of role-playing. The game will forego a traditional main quest in favor of a network of smaller tasks and narratives centered around local factions. Players will help these stories progress through major global events, which they can either influence or accept the results of.
One of the most notable features of The Wayward Realms is its virtual game master — an AI system that adapts the game to the player’s strengths and weaknesses, preferences, decisions, and even creates quests for them. Developers promise Unreal Engine 5 graphics and tons of handcrafted quests, thousands of NPCs on a single screen, sea travel, mounts, a reputation and laws system, and dynamic battles.
The Wayward Realms is expected to launch its early-access phase in December 2025 on PC (Steam). The project is led by Julian LeFay and Ted Peterson, the key figures in the development of The Elder Scrolls.
