Summary
- Wildgate delivers innovative PvPvE gameplay, brilliantly combining space combat and first-person shooting, which shines with coordinated teams.
- It currently suffers from limited content variety across characters, environments, and ships, which makes it feel like an early access experience.
- Players should consider tolerance for repetition and access to reliable teammates before purchase, despite its tremendous potential and promising content roadmap.
Moonshot Games’ debut is a first-person shooter game, blending cooperative space combat and competitive multiplayer mayhem. Wildgate drops five teams into reach, letting them scavenge for loot and battle AI enemies for a precious Artifact. See where it’ll be worth diving into Wildgate with this review on its gameplay and content.
A Chaotic Symphony of Space Combat
Wildgate throws you and your teammates into a shared spacecraft, daring you into a team survival play. It features a multi-layered approach to combat, seamlessly blending ship-to-ship battles with first-person shooting mechanics. Alongside, it also has PVE dungeon exploration for an intriguing gameplay experience.
The spacefaring action centers on customizable vessels, each offering distinct tactical advantages. Moreover, the Hunter serves as a reliable all-rounder with impressive speed capabilities. On the other hand, the Bastion transforms matches into defensive chess games with superior boarding protection and health pools.
Meanwhile, aggressive players will prefer the Privateer’s eight cannon slots, delivering devastating firepower. On the other hand, the Scout proved as most effective with incredible maneuverability, making the artifact extraction easier. Yet, the Wildgate truly shines in ship-based encounters integrated with on-foot combat.
Players may frequently find themselves boarding enemy vessels or defending against invaders. This creates dynamic scenarios where a single well-coordinated assault completely turns the tide of a 40-minute match.
Character Variety and Customization Depth
The game features variety in its roster of seven Prospectors, which allows them to experience differing gameplay. Each character brings in unique abilities alongside passive traits, altering team strategies. One of them is the aquatic engineer, Sal, who excels at ship repairs and can reroll unwanted loot.
Meanwhile, Kae serves as perfect master infiltrator with her teleportation and telekinesis. This makes her capable of stealing items directly from enemy hulls without setting foot aboard their vessel. Although it provides additional customization layers, the current selection remains somewhat limited, with only nine weapons available.
Goo-firing rating gun and anti-ship rocket launcher serve as standout options, bypassing traditional turret requirements. Meanwhile, the gadget system adds depth to the tactical gameplay, allowing players to equip tools. It includes the likes of hull-drilling devices and other surprisingly effective weapons like “rock,” dealing enormous damage. Ion can punch holes in enemy ships, while others, such as Adrian, are underpowered with less meaningful abilities.
The Content Scarcity Challenge
However, the most obvious weakness of Wildgate during the review was its limited content. After extended play sessions, the players lack content to play with across all major systems. There are only seven characters, four ships, and a handful of dungeon types, which are exhausted quickly upon playing.
This left players with limited options, forcing them to settle into familiar patterns. On the other side, they added randomly generated match modifiers to address this limitation. It introduced elements including energy-devouring leeches and cosmic storms, requiring special shields for survival.
It successfully helps prevent matches from feeling identical while maintaining the modifier pool relatively small. Certainly, this leads to repetitive encounters even in longer play sessions. Although the PvE dungeon exploration appears engaging at first, it quickly becomes predictable after frequent encounters.
Communication: Make or Break Factor
Overall, Wildgate’s success heavily relies on team coordination, as any other multiplayer game does. It required effective ship management, dungeon clearing, and combat engagement to win the Artifact. So, having silent or toxic teammates destroys the experience of players.
Hence, the matchmaking with random players results in frustrating scenarios where the game is left unrealized. But playing it with friends or communicative strangers allows the game to transform into something special. It creates a memorable moment that makes the game stand out from its competitors.
The Verdict
That sums up this review for Wildgate, challenging the current dominating shooter-looter games in the market. While featuring a brilliant combination of combat and dungeon exploration, its content remains limited, which makes it repetitive over time. It is definitely worth it for players who want to enjoy the experience with their friends. However, solo players may find the game frustrating when paired with silent or toxic teammates.
Writer’s Recommendations
Hi there, it’s Stal! If you loved that article, make sure to check out these other articles I’ve written just for you. See you there!
