What happens when three farmers go on an adventure together? I’ve got no clue, because in Wildermyth it’s a bit different each time. The tactical combat RPG tells procedural stories, allowing your characters to develop their own histories and relationships in each playthrough. Wildermyth is nearing the end of its own adventure, with a full launch planned for next week to cap off its time in early access. The developers have post launch plans, as so many do these days, but folks seem to have already been having a grand time with it throughout early access.
Wildermyth is sitting my personal shame pile, I’ll admit. I thought it sounded neat as heck around its early access launch but time always seems to get away. Fortunately, Sin played it a lot. Like, a lot a lot. As someone who also tends to bang on about games I think are rad, I’ll just let her tell you about why its characters are so neat.
“Along the way they’ll grow and change more as people than as classes or piles of statistics,” she says. “You must explore a strategic map, fighting and exploring and suffering and celebrating and dying across multiple generations, before the final showdown with whatever evil you’re up against this time. Travelling and fighting can kick off subplots for specific characters, which tell succinct but excellent micro-stories to flesh them out and tempt you to care about them a little too much. Its fighting is small scale but fierce and always threatening, losing anyone stings, and the strategy layer is just complex enough.”
Everyone else agrees, it seems, since early access players have collectively given it an “overwhelmingly positive” user review rate on Steam.
I’ll ask you to pardon my reach, but it strikes me as what folks enjoy so much about Crusader Kings. The turn-based combat makes it a different animal of course, but they share a focus on characters who become a tapestry of the choices you’ve made, deaths you’ve allowed, and all the story events you’ve gotten slapped with along the way.
As they approach that final launch date, Wildermyth’s developers have announced today that they’ve put a large update on the game’s early access version beta branch. They’ve chosen not to spoil many of the big changes coming in their 1.0 version, but if you happen to have been playing you can take a look there.
As for their plans after launch, Worldwalker Games say they’re planning additional combat maps, an additional unlockable campaign, modding improvements, and a few other things.
Wildermyth launches next Tuesday, June 15th over on Steam. The developers say they’ll be running a discounted price on launch week.