Ex-Blizzard Boss’s Wildgate Plays Like The Star Trek Game I’ve Always Wanted

I began my hands-on preview with Wildgate–one of the first projects from former Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime’s Dreamhaven firm–worried that it might be trying to do too much. The briefing just before the preview session began mentioned a lot of different elements at once: 20-person multiplayer, space exploration, two types of combat, procedurally generated worlds, and the list goes on. If even one of these elements didn’t deliver, the entire experience will be worse for it.

Somehow, Wildgate sticks the landing so far. The ability to seamlessly shift between exploration and combat is impressive, progression feels earned rather than forced, and the format lends itself to all sorts of different strategies based on the players joining you on the expedition. After playing a few matches against both AI and human opponents, Wildgate is showing some real promise as the next big multiplayer experience.

Wildgate matches throw five teams of five players each into a wide-open 8×8 grid of space in pursuit of the Artifact, a mysterious item of vast power. The main objective for each team is to find the Artifact and take it through the Wildgate, thus escaping with the big prize, but a team can also win by being the last ship standing at any point in the match.

No two maps are exactly the same, as each one lays out a different set of places to explore and items to find. The five teams start in different regions of the map, far enough away from each other that they’ll all have time to explore, which leads into one of the coolest parts of the game so far: resource gathering.

Yes, you read that right: Finding and gathering resources in Wildgate is incredibly cool. Once you find a derelict ship or abandoned space station to explore, you and your teammates can just open the door to the ship and fly over there using jetpacks. You then have free reign to look around, defeat hostile NPCs inside, and solve quick puzzles in order to open the door to some helpful loot.

Loot includes new weapons for your ship, which can be equipped immediately, and upgrades that can be placed all around the ship for extra buffs. The catch with loot, though, is that each player can only hold one piece at a time; if there’s no time to go back and forth and collect everything, difficult decisions will need to be made.

This marks the first real challenge for each team: What do we take back? Should we stock up on weapons and ammo to better defend ourselves, or are there some upgrades we simply can’t ignore? It’s an interesting dilemma, and one that can inform how the rest of the match will turn out without the team even realizing it.

While out in the wilds of space, there’s mining to be done as well. There are two key resources that can be collected during a match: ice blocks, which keep your engines cool, and fuel cells, which activate the ship’s boosters for faster travel. Managing both of these is crucial, as being left without one or the other can be devastating; my team lost one battle because we got sandwiched between two enemy teams and could not boost our way out of the situation quickly enough.

Just as you can explore ships and bases in real time, you can engage other teams in space dogfighting combat as soon as one comes into range. Each ship has shields that can have holes poked into them with well-placed shots, which then gives you a direct line of fire to the enemy ship itself. Deal enough damage, and the ship–along with the five players on it–are eliminated.

Elimination is never a foregone conclusion, however, as the team on defense can do plenty to keep the ship functioning for potential escape. Fires will break out around the ship as it takes damage, but using the Swiss-Army-knife-like tool at every character’s disposal will put them out and heal the ship. See a hole in one of the windows? Aim the tool and patch it up immediately. Engine overheated? Go press the button and ice will be consumed to cool it down. There’s a ton of spinning plates to consider with every engagement, and how your team reacts will be key to your success–or your elimination.

However, combat isn’t limited to ships in Wildgate; just as the crew can jump out and explore areas for loot, the crew can board the enemy ship whenever they want and wreak havoc. There’s a sound strategy in sending some crewmates to board the enemy ship and become nuisances, while some hang back and pepper the ship with cannon blasts. The choice is yours, and it makes each battle in Wildgate a unique and highly engaging challenge.

Before each match begins, players will select one of a handful of different characters, each with a set of unique abilities and backstories. While character selection and archetype isn’t as involved as the heroes of Overwatch, to pick an example, character and perk selections do still offer plenty of strategies that let you play how you prefer.

In one match, for instance, I chose a character that could see any enemy player who boarded my ship through walls, up to a certain distance. I coupled this with perks that made me able to put out fires quickly and powered my attacks up slightly while on the ship, and I became the lookout whenever the rest of my team found an empty ship to explore. That way, if an enemy team was able to sneak up on us, we weren’t left completely defenseless.

When the preview ended, I found myself incredibly impressed with what Wildgate is offering. The seamless transition between different “phases” of a match–exploration, direct combat, ship combat, etc.–is incredibly cool, and the vast playground of each region offers plenty of opportunities to do all of them. What’s more, even with its seemingly grand size, each match only takes 20-40 minutes to complete, so there’s not a major time commitment if you want to sit down and give it a shot. Wildgate feels like three different games mashed into one multiplayer experience, but the way those three games come together is highly effective.

No concrete release information for Wildgate has been announced, but interested players can sign up at the game’s website to participate in a community preview playtest April 10-14.