Wild Bastards trades in the sprawling FPS levels of its predecessor for bite-sized arenas and more strategy. The new strategic elements of managing a crew of outlaws and navigating planets for resources and upgrades in the most efficient way add some nice depth, but the smaller shooting sections feel held back by the bite-size setup, resulting in an experience that feels more like a genre change than an evolution.
Wild Bastards
Developer: Blue Manchu
Price: $35
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, and PC
MonsterVine was provided an Xbox Series X|S code for review
Introduction to Wild Bastards: Strategy Meets Roguelike
Wild Bastards, the spiritual sequel to Void Bastards, brings a new level of strategy and management to its roguelike series, letting go of much of its shooting in the process. The result is an interesting tactical space adventure, although some of the charm is lost in the new bite-sized combat arenas. Wild Bastards follows the outlaw gang of the same name, as the two remaining members team up with the mysterious Drifter spaceship to travel across the galaxy and resurrect the other members. Jebediah Chaste and his posse chase them across the galaxy during this, intent on finishing the job.
The campaign is made up of galactic sectors, each of which is procedurally generated with planets and other landmarks for you to check out. Across each sector, you can gather different mods, which serve as equipment, along with aces, which serve as permanent upgrades for the Wild Bastards. If all of your bastards wipe in a given sector, you will be sent back to the start of it, with a new set of planets and landmarks.
When you beam down to planets the strategy gameplay kicks in. Each planet will allow you to take between two to four outlaws with you, which can move around in pairs. On the planets, you can find resources to help with your journey, along with mods and aces. There are also enemy posts around the planet, which you can take down in showdowns, where you get a kick to first-person shooting level.
Showdowns and Combat: Bite-Sized Arenas Fall Short
The showdowns highlight the creativity of each Bastards different weapons and abilities, but it also shows the flaws of only having these small arenas. While the arena layout is different each time and can change wildly depending on the planet, there isn’t much to these. You have to hunt down all of the enemies in the arena and not take too much damage in the process. Many of the enemies aren’t interested in taking you head on, which feels like it should introduce more strategic elements, but it instead results in a lot of running around searching for the enemies you haven’t found yet. Around the planets there are different systems you can interact with that can debuff enemies for showdowns, but these are limited to adding NPC allies for yourself or lowering the number of enemies or their health.
Luckily, there is one shining aspect of these showdowns, which is the Bastards themselves. Not only does each one have a unique weapon and ability, but they also will gain a variety of passives over time. My two favorites were Preach and Spike, with Preach, uses a minigun and her ability to give her health when she deals damage, while Spike throws high damage darts that turn him invisible on kills. His ability will take over automatic security guns or spawn one if there aren’t any available.
Wild Bastards also does a great job of forcing you to use different Bastards in different combinations, since they will occasionally have beef with each other and refuse to work together. This can be quickly solved with a shared meal, so it won’t be too restrictive, but later missions have required teams for you to use. Being forced to change up my team gave me more appreciation for some of the more unique character kits, although I still gravitated towards the same set of characters whenever it let me.
Exploring Planets: Strategic Moves and Chaste’s Children
When it comes to exploring the planets, you have a limited number of moves each turn, and after a certain number of turns the powerful children of Chaste will appear to chase you down. This means you either need to grab whatever you can and get to the exit before they arrive, or be prepared to tackle them head on. These enemies deal a ton of damage and have massive health bars, but don’t have unique weapons or abilities to make these fights interesting on top of being hard.
At the end of each sector, you will have a final planet with an objective you must complete, with the majority being the helixes of dead Bastards that allow you to revive them. Once a sector is complete, you move on to the next, with all resources and mods being destroyed in the process. You get to keep any aces you find, but everything else is scrapped. While it does keep each new sector from getting too easy, it also lessens the excitement of finding great gear, since you’re going to lose it regardless of whether you succeed or not.
Speaking of success, while there are harder difficulties to play through, on normal for most of the game it becomes hard to lose since you have to have all of your Bastards get injured to wipe. Since you can only take a limited number with you down to each planet, it can take multiple wipes on different planets in a sector to lose, lessening the need to really consider the tactics. The procedural campaign and challenge modes unlocked after completing the campaign offer more of a challenge, but you’re going to have to finish your first run if you want to check those out or bump the difficulty.
Visuals and Style: Comic Book Aesthetics in 3D Action
The story of Wild Bastards is relatively simple, but the unique characterization of each Bastard provides something to latch onto. Not only do they each have a unique way of speaking, they all have strong personalities and lots of implied and explicit relationships with each other. The character dynamics and unique weapons make each new Bastard joining the crew an exciting moment, even if they end up being one of your lesser used characters.
Wild Bastards also uses the same art style as Void Bastards, placing 2D characters in a 3D environment, all with a gorgeous comic book style. There are plenty of different looking enemies, and the variety of explosions and other effects shine in the arenas, even when the combat isn’t as interesting.
Ultimately, Wild Bastards’ move from a more traditional FPS roguelite to a strategy focused one hurts as much as it helps. Planning your path around each planet and sector provides interesting choices and tradeoffs, but the limited scope of the showdowns causes them to lose their luster, even as you unlock new Bastards to play as. The difficulty also doesn’t keep pace with your new aces and upgrades, even as the rest of your equipment and resources are taken away in each new area. There is still plenty to like in Wild Bastards but if you’re here because you loved the FPS gameplay in Void Bastards, you won’t find what you’re looking for here.
The Final Word
Wild Bastards adds strategic depth to the roguelite game but sacrifices depth in its shooting to do so. The result is a game that has fun characters and great strategy, but the shooting sections become stale over the course of the campaign.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average
