Historically, when individuals discuss wayfinding as a follow, they’re referring to how individuals discover themselves of their bodily area and navigate from place to position. This contains utilizing instruments equivalent to a map and compass, astrolabe, and even GPS. Nevertheless, builders Airship Syndicate and publishers Digital Extremes determined to show that on its head for his or her upcoming sport, Wayfinder, and introduce the Gloom Dagger to the wayfinding fold. Whereas at PAX East 2023, I had the chance to examine this sport out and check out the Wayfinder preview for myself.
Proper off the bat, I jumped into Wayfinder enjoying with two different media individuals who had been visiting the area, as the sport is an motion MMO that may be performed solo or in co-op mode. Co-op appears to be the inspired approach to go, and I’m undecided I might have fared in addition to I did within the stage if I used to be enjoying solo. Because it was, we nonetheless confronted many challenges enjoying as a staff, although we had a surprisingly related thought on which weapon seemed the good (the Epitaph clearly. A large purple scythe with creepy glowing eyes? Hell sure!)
We had 5 completely different characters to select from, every with completely different playstyles and attributes, and I went with Senja. A warrior with some tank-ish attributes, Senja is all about melee fight and dealing large quantities of bodily injury. Whereas I didn’t use too most of the customizing choices on her appears, I ended up attempting out just a few completely different weapons, like a scythe, big hammer, and sword and defend, to see how every one felt. The scythe admittedly was the best-looking weapon, however the sword and defend match my playstyle finest, with the defend’s injury blocking throughout the boss combat being extraordinarily helpful.
Our staff used the Gloom Dagger and headed into the Mines dungeons to see what we might discover, and the dungeons had been surprisingly customizable. Utilizing one thing referred to as Imbuements that you just purchase within the sport, the dungeons could be given completely different attributes, that means you’ll see completely different rewards, challenges, and enemies relying on what Imbuements are outfitted. For our occasion, we moderately, sadly, bought hit with some nasty monsters that set all the things on hearth, together with our characters, however we did additionally get to combat a Phoenix enemy which got here with some fairly candy rewards.
The boss combat was a moderately nasty affair, with not one of the three of us finally making it to the top alive, although we put up a good exhibiting. It undoubtedly felt like a raid boss and I might not have needed to sort out one thing like that on my own, although it could be doable with the appropriate weapons and a better stage. And, to not sound like a PBS particular, however it was nonetheless a number of enjoyable although we didn’t win, and likewise confirmed the necessity for techniques and teamwork within the sport, extra so than within the dungeon stage. Randomly attacking the boss from all angles wasn’t doing the job. We wanted to be on the identical web page with a coordinated method to have an opportunity of taking it down.
Two facets I want we might have seen extra of had been the crafting and customization techniques. Along with the Imbuements customizing the dungeons you enter, Echoes can customise your character and weapons’ powers, and bodily appearances are additionally customizable. The crafting system we didn’t see, however it permits additional customization of weapons and tools.
Wayfinder has a number of buzz round it proper now, and for good cause. The fight was clean and enjoyable, the characters had been attention-grabbing, and the customization of dungeons and stats provides you a large number to mess around with. Undoubtedly aimed extra at co-op play than solo, Wayfinder delivered an awesome expertise within the demo, and I’m wanting ahead to testing extra of it when the time comes.
Wayfinder was previewed on an early construct at PAX East 2023.
