It’s the end of the world and to make matters worse, you’ve just died.
The world, Evenor, has been overrun by creatures of chaos and shadow called the Gloom, emerging from tears in reality. No one knows where exactly they came from–indeed, no one knows much of anything, because the town you wake up in, Skylight, is surrounded by a hostile landscape and for all you know, it could be the last city standing. But somehow, the Gloom is in league with primal titans called the Precursors, who battled the god-like Architects at the beginning of the world. If you don’t fight to survive, this world will end.
You are a Wayfinder, an undying echo of one of the heroes who died saving Skylight. You are willful enough to emerge stronger from the Gloom and equipped with a dagger, forged of a shard of a dead Precursor’s sword. The dagger cuts through reality and can take you to layers of the Gloom ordinary mortals cannot find, let alone use as a battleground. Your mission is to find as much information about the world as possible, and slay a heaping cup of Skylight’s enemies.
That’s the world of Wayfinder, which I worked on beginning in January of 2023. The game launched its Early Access version in September, and has been steadily improving as it works its way up to full commercial release in 2024. It’s sort of a looter-shooter like Destiny if you replaced the “shooter” part with a fantasy combat beat-em-up. There is some shooting, as the heroes can switch between styles of weapons in their quest to kick butt, upgrade their weapons and powers, and take on bigger and crazier bosses.
Sadly, shenanigans with Airship’s publisher, Digital Extremes, meant that the company was not immune to the “layoff virus” that infected practically the whole game industry throughout 2023 and 2024. I’m not kidding. 31 days into 2024, there were over 6,000 jobs lost across dozens of companies. I was part of the staff that got reduced.
I have fond memories of my time at Airship. There were a lot of good people there (in fact, I can’t name any bad ones!) and I really enjoyed my time on Wayfinder. I did quite a bit of player-facing work, from humorous side quests like “Project Re-Venge Re-Visited With a Re-Vengeance” to my signature lore dumps in weapon and accessory descriptions, to spearheading the holiday content, Eventide. As of this writing, there’s still a sizeable chunk of my work scheduled yet to be released, so you better believe I’m going to keep playing the game to see it all.
If you want to join me, you can get Wayfinder here. It’s available on PC and the PlayStation 5.