I think I've started to get a handle on it Wild bastards' unique character swapping system, just when I ran out of characters to swap. I was down to the last member of my three-man crew when I faced a difficult random encounter that was the last thing separating me from a successful planet recovery.
Any dreams I had of achieving victory with my sniper robot cowboy “The Judge” were dashed by my own poor aim and the brutal attacks of a huge, beefy guy who looked like a bacteriophage. I longed to attend the GDC demo again, armed with my new knowledge, but there were other people waiting in line to play.
Wild Bastards represents a slight genre change compared to its 2019 predecessor, Void Bastards – instead of the Bio/System Shock reminiscent of corridor crawling, light stealth and resource gathering, Wild Bastards features more open levels with a lot of verticality and a large Number of enemies. Unlike the first game's randomly generated anonymous convicts, it also introduces a cast of 13 “outlaws” for you to play as.
However, this isn't a Borderlands or Destiny situation where you just stick with a character you like – each has advantages and disadvantages given Wild Bastards' unique enemy types. Blue Manchu audio director Ryan Roth likened it to a “rock-paper-scissors” system, saying: “Void Bastards did the same thing, where it's like, Hey, these are the enemies on the ship. What is your equipment? What tools do you want to bring with you?”
From a galaxy map of the entire roguelike campaign, you select a certain number of characters (I had three in the demo) to send to the surface of a planet. The interface is presented as a game board/world map with the usual roguelike risk/reward hubs and enemy encounters. Each of these nodes is an FPS arena that you can bring two of your planetary characters into.
Switching between your chosen gunslingers is instant, like changing your weapon in another FPS, but they also have their own sound effects, voiceovers and special abilities in addition to a mechanically different weapon. Crucially, each character also has their own health bar, offering new options for managing your limited resources in the anti-healing roguelike.
Everything about a character is paused when you switch from them – to my dismay, this means you can't cancel a reload and wait for it to complete in the background, which seriously clashes with my Armored Core 6 instincts. Instead, the real power comes from creating nasty damaging effects like poison over an extended period of time by switching between your opponents.
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I had Paul Atreide's prescient visions of a deliciously high skill ceiling where you balance your team of three to account for all possible threats, then narrow it down to two based on individual mission parameters, then cleverly swap your people around to maximize their damage and ward off enemy attacks.
I definitely had the most difficulty dealing with Smoky, a constantly burning cowboy who creates AoE fire damage with his finger guns – he was my first character to fall on a slow death march through a purple poison planet. The dual-turret Spider Lady Spiderosa was more my speed, but its high damage, accuracy, and rate of fire were offset by a deceptively short range that always overwhelmed me. I had the best luck when I retreated into my FPS comfort zone and clicked heads with The Judge, whose rifle had the feel, precision and relentless accuracy of a Quake railgun.
However, your best build-crafting plans can easily be derailed by the Wild Bastards' friend/feud system. If you play poorly, take a lot of damage, and barely make it out of a planet, your surviving characters may develop feuds and refuse to team up in a run at future stops, limiting your gear options unless you patch things up via one Consumable item that may be better suited to strengthening your other characters' relationships for a range of improvements.
Wild Bastards had already piqued my interest, but playing the GDC demo made it something I could try on day one. Wild Bastards is due out sometime this year, and you can currently add it to your wishlist steam.
