The ‘father’ of The Elder Scrolls has been forced to abandon his work on a new game, due to his failing health.
While Bethesda’s Todd Howard is very much the current face of The Elder Scrolls, he didn’t begin working on the series until the second game. As such, the people that deserve the credit for creating the series are Vijay Lakshman, Ted Peterson, and Julian LeFay.
All three have long since left Bethesda and, in 2019, founded their own studio called OnceLost Games to make The Wayward Realms, another fantasy action role-player that’s billed as a spiritual successor to The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall.
A recent update on the game brings no good news though, as the studio has announced that, after a long battle with cancer, LeFay has had to step down due to his worsening condition.
The news was relayed in a brief YouTube video by The Wayward Realms executive producer Victor Villarreal, who also shared a message from Peterson in the video description.
According to Peterson, LeFay’s doctors have said his time is limited and thus ‘must step away from OnceLost Games for his health and to live his final moments surrounded by his loved ones.’
This means he won’t be around to see The Wayward Realms launch, but Peterson added, ‘Julian has complete faith in the ability of the team to bring the game he has envisioned to life for this incredible community.
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‘Anticipating this possibility, Julian has documented his vision and concepts well, ensuring the team is left with the resources needed to complete the game. The full game, beyond the Early Access build.’
LeFay is Danish and joined Bethesda in 1987, just one year after the studio’s founding. He was brought on to the first The Elder Scrolls game -The Elder Scrolls: Arena – as a programmer and went on to direct the sequel.
While he was by no means the sole contributor to the series’ creation, he is credited with coming up with the name for The Elder Scrolls and is often referred to as the ‘father’ of the series.
LeFay left Bethesda in 1998 – although he did work a little on The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind – and after brief stints at Sega and Blockbuster, reunited with Peterson and Lakshman to open their own studio.
Although their first project, The Wayward Realms, was announced in 2019, a Kickstarter campaign to raise $500,000 to fund an early access build only went live in May 2024.
It successfully met its target in just 12 days, although the plan is to take the early access build to publishers to seek further funding for a full release.
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