Wyldheart Preview
One of the perks and pleasures of this job is getting to play an upcoming game alongside its developers. It’s kind of like a real-time director’s cut and bespoke tutorial rolled into one good time. Case in point: spending time with Dennis Brännvall and Erin Bower of Wayfinder Studios. These two industry veterans led me through an hour or so of their new action RPG, Wyldheart. Like the game, the experience was full of charm and an enthusiastic approach to game design.
Fun for Friends
Wyldheart is described by the developers as a co-op action RPG set in a rustic fantasy world. While it can be played solo, dungeon crawling and exploring with friends provides the optimal experience. After all, it isn’t much fun playing D&D all alone.
It’s clear that Wayfinder Studios — a small indie developer with around 10 team members — isn’t trying to reinvent a beloved genre. Instead, they’re showing us familiar ideas and mechanics through a new lens. I can only speak to the small slice of game I played, but Wyldheart looks promising.
Crawl in the Dungeon and Out in the Town
The game starts in an underground dungeon filled with piles of radioactive-looking slime. Picking up and equipping weapons, finding consumables, and other gear works about like you’d expect. A few simple puzzles involved exploration and finding key objects to open a door. Coordinated combat dispatched the little slime monsters and a level boss. Although the game scales difficulty for solo players, using a combination of magic and bladed weapons dispatched the boss on the second try.
Leaving the dungeon, we found ourselves on the game’s overworld map, divided into evocatively-named zones. Eventually, the zones will be filled with destinations and missions. We warped to one of Wyldheart’s hub towns. It was a quaint village filled with the usual array of vendors, crafters and mission-givers. Although we were short on time, I was anxious to explore the town and the surrounding countryside. The developers have a long list of features to come, like player housing.
Wyldheart allows the player to select from several fantasy races, like Freefolk, Mosslings, and Grimhorns. The character creator is relatively rudimentary, but the class-less system is open ended and allows for a wide range of character types based Adventuring, Survival, Dungeoneering, Weaponry, and Magic.
World of Wyldheart
One of Wyldheart’s most immediately appealing features is its art. Colorful and stylized, it purposely recalls the cartoony look of classic RPGs like World of Warcraft or maybe EverQuest 2. I don’t know how it deals with the game’s more monstrous creations, but what’s in place is charming and attractive.
Any small criticisms of Wyldheart at this stage of development are mild at best. Action, combat, and movement felt a bit floaty, and mechanics like inventory management and spellcasting need some refinement. There’s no voice acting. It’s hard to tell from the little preview how effective the narrative or writing will be.
But the Wayfinder Studios team is full of industry pros from across many genres and well-known IPs. I have no doubts that Wyldheart has a bright future. What I’ve played so far — alone and with the team — indicates a clear vision and a studio with the chops and passion to bring it to fruition. I’m looking forward to following Wyldheart’s journey.
***Preview code provided by the publisher***
