Back in May 2019, developer Blue Manchu released a roguelike first-person shooter calledVoid Bastards,an evocative title for an evocative game.Void Bastardswas met with a lot of love from both critics and fans upon its 2019 debut, and five years later, Blue Manchu is back with another vibrant roguelike adventure. But whileWild Bastardscarries forward the same style and tone as its spiritual predecessor, there are some big differences when it comes to gameplay.
In short,Wild Bastardsis a roguelike first-person shooter just likeVoid Bastards, but it has an additional layer of turn-based strategy that its predecessor didn’t have. This givesWild Bastardsa very different sense of pace, and while that might disappoint some fans, there’s still plenty that’s worth checking out. Though, not all ofWild Bastards' elements make a satisfying impact.
Wild Bastards Has an Engaging Sci-Fi Narrative
After a very brief prologue,Wild Bastards' core premise is revealed, and it’s a pretty engaging, classicSci-Fi/Westernnarrative. Aboard the mysterious sentient ship The Drifter, players need to travel the galaxy and collect the souls of their dead ex-crew members, all in the hopes of eventually reaching the promised land, a haven for bots, mutants, and xenos.
Wild Bastards' story is simple but effective and gives the player a strong incentive to keep barreling through the galaxy. There are also plenty of fun little Sci-Fi in-universe explanations for gameplay mechanics, such as The Drifter’s sentience being the reason behindthe game’s roguelike loop.Wild Bastards' main campaign took around 9 hours to beat on normal difficulty.
Wild Bastardsalso has a procedural campaign mode, a challenge mode, and an Iron Man mode if players want an even tougher challenge. These extra modes are a nice addition that helps the game feel like a complete package, but their modifiers won’t change the core loop all that much.
Wild Bastard’s Gameplay Loop Bites Off More Than It Can Chew
Wild Bastardsthrows players in at the deep end, and it isn’t afraid to let them flail around for a little while. From the get-go,Wild Bastardsgives players quite a few overlapping systems, and they’re often left to figure it out for themselves in the game’s opening hour. This makes for an intimidating first impression.
But after a round or two,Wild Bastards' initial hurdle starts to fade away, and an engaging gameplay loop emerges. Players will soon get into the rhythm of warping to a new sector in search of a new Outlaw to unlock and begin the lengthy process of rescuing them. Once in the new sector, players need to plan their route through the stars, with each planet offering a key upgrade along the way. Once above a planet, players beam down to the surface, and that’s whereWild Bastards' new turn-based strategy elementscome into play.
With a party of 1–4 Outlaws, players arrive on a planet that’smapped out like a board game, with key points of interest dotted along linear pathways. Players have a certain number of movements per turn and the general goal is to grab as much loot, upgrades, mods, and valuable resources as they can before a powerful boss arrives to hunt them down and force them to leave the planet empty-handed.
As well as upgrades, resources, and useful tiles that restore the player’s movement or health,Wild Bastards' board game-like planet maps are littered with combat encounters like roadblocks and enemy patrols. Reaching one of these combat encounters forces players into a challenging first-person Showdown, where they’re required to gun down every enemy to progress.
This core loop repeats forWild Bastards' entirety, but it remains fairly engaging thanks to the game’s many overlapping progression systems and evolving mechanics. In each sector, players will encounter at least one new gameplay mechanic. These can be permanent upgrades like Aces, Tonics that grant the player a way to heal team members, and the Pal/Feud system that sees the player’s gang of Outlaws fall out or become friends with one another at random intervals. These mechanics being drip-fed to the player throughout the game fuels a sense of rewarding progression that’s key for a roguelike, but it’s not quite perfect.
A major issue withWild Bastards' gameplay loopis that while unlocking these mechanics feels immediately rewarding, some don’t have all that much impact on gameplay. The Pal/Feud system is probably the best example of this. Initially, this system seems very in-depth, with players being presented with a large chart that explains who’s feuding with who and who’s friends with whom, all shown through different lines connecting Outlaws' icons.
At the start of the game, it matters which characters are feuding as they can’t beam down together. But once the player has unlocked six or more Outlaws, this system can be largely forgotten about, as they’ll likely always have a duo they’re happy with, regardless of who’s feuding. This then means that the Beans resource is almost redundant, as the player will rarely need them to heal feuds. This criticism extends to quite a few ofWild Bastards' gameplay mechanics, with many feeling enjoyable to unlock, but ultimately lacking the depth needed to make them engaging for the game’s entire duration.
Unfortunately, with this lack of depth,Wild Bastards' gameplay loop can begin to feel rather repetitive after a few hours. This is especially true if players aren’t enjoying the turn-based nature of the game’s planet map, with it taking up a large portion of gameplay.
Wild Bastards' Outlaws Are a Mixed Bag of Likable Rogues
As its name suggests, much ofWild Bastards' story and gameplay hinges on its cast of Outlaws. Throughout the game’s main campaign, players will unlock a total of 13 playable Outlaws. Just like its spiritual predecessor,Wild Bastards' distinct comic-like art styledoes a good job of making each of the game’s 13 Outlaws stand apart, and the game’s voice performances go a long way in cementing the characters' personalities.
Gameplay-wise, each Outlaw wields a unique weapon and special ability. In theory, this means thatWild Bastardsoffers 13 different playstyles. But again, things aren’t quite as good as they seem on the surface. In reality,Wild Bastards' 13 Outlawsare a mixed bag, at least in terms of gameplay. WhileWild Bastardsis home to plenty of useful characters that have powerful, versatile weapons and special abilities that feel very satisfying to use, it’s also home to a good few who simply aren’t worth taking into battle.
While opinions on some Outlaws will vary depending on the player’s preferred playstyle in first-person shooters, there are some Outlaws that are objectively weaker than the rest. Smoky’s flame-spitting finger gun looks cool as hell, but it’s incredibly weak, and its reload time is just too long, for instance. In a standard FPS, these traits wouldn’t be a major issue, butWild Bastardsis a difficult gamein which every single shot matters. There’s simply no room in the posse for weak Outlaws, as weak Outlaws mean a swift death, and death means the abrupt end of a run, the need to restart, and a strong feeling of frustration that quickly clouds the entire experience.
Unfortunately, this leads toWild Bastards' roster feeling a little unbalanced, and by about the halfway mark, players will have found their favorite set of four Outlaws and will likely ignore a good portion of the roster. That being said, things do get better with the game’sAce upgrade system, which grants Outlaws powerful stat boosts and new abilities. These Aces go a long way in making the roster’s weakest Outlaws a bit more bearable, but it still won’t convince players to swap out their favorite four.
Wild Bastards Lands More Shots Than it Misses, But It’s a Close Call
Wild Bastardsis a very vibrant, very ambitious game that goes out of its way to add new gameplay mechanics and playable characters. But while that effort is certainly commendable, there’s no denying that many of those elements just don’t hit as hard as they should. There’s still plenty of room for fans to have a good time withWild Bastards, but that time won’t be free of moments of confusion, frustration, and a little boredom.
WHERE TO PLAY
Wild Bastardsis available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Game Rant was provided a PS5 code for this review.
