Simon Woodroffe, the creative director for Everwild, has reportedly left Rare

Everwild Showcase Screenshot (Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

What you need to know

Everwild is an original IP from Rare, the legendary game studio behind games like Sea of Thieves.
Everwild is a bit of a mystery, with little known about the upcoming, early-in-development title for Xbox and PC.
According to a new report, Everwild's creative director, Simon Woodroffe, recently resigned from Rare.
This leaves Everwild solely in the hands of Louise O'Connor, who has long been very hands-on with Everwild.

One of the more enigmatic Xbox Game Studios titles currently in development is Everwild, which has remained mostly a mystery as it's still very early in development. A new report from VGC shares that Everwild has now lost its most senior developer, with creative director Simon Woodroffe having resigned from Rare earlier this month.

While on the surface this would appear to spell grave news for the new IP, it does mean that leadership on the game falls solely to Louise O'Connor, the executive producer who has already led most of the game's promotion, and morale at Rare seems to be high. Studio head Craig Duncan reportedly told VGC that "We thank Simon for all his hard work on Everwild and wish him the very best of luck for the future. The Everwild team are in good hands and passionate about building a game that will give players unforgettable experiences in a natural and magical world."

This would mark the second time a prominent Xbox Game Studios lead has left, after Chris Lee departed from 343i after working on Halo Infinite.

Other than some scattered information and teasers about Everwild's gorgeous world and mysterious characters, not much else is known about Rare's original IP. We do know that when it launches, however, it'll come to Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC, all through Xbox Game Pass.

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Zachary Boddy (They / Them) is a Staff Writer primarily focused on covering the latest news, the best Xbox and PC games, and the most interesting hardware. They have been gaming and writing for most of their life, and have been with Windows Central and its sister sites since 2019. While originally brought on to write about all things Minecraft, Zachary has since expanded to write about practically everything that Windows Central covers. You can find Zachary on Twitter @BoddyZachary.

3 Comments

One thing that doesn't get mentioned enough is that XBOX exclusives like EVERWILD, that go on GAME PASS also go to retail for non-subscribers. And on PC the includes STEAM as well as traditional physical retailers, besides the Microsoft store.
GAME PASS isn't compulsory and won't be for years, if ever.
Just take a breath homie... It will be ok!
Of course games are sold outside of Game Pass. But let's be honest, it's too good of a good deal, especially if you're even remotely interested in Microsoft games. It's a non brainer. So it's natural that the angle to cover these first party MS games is to talk about them from the Game Pass angle, especially since like Sea of Thieves this seems to be oriented to be a game-as-service coop experience. But above all, they're not saying it won't be sold outside GP.