Wild Bastards was provided by Maximum Entertainment for review. Thank you!
There’s something about first-person roguelike games that hits differently for me. It feels much more rewarding to play than other first-person shooters, especially multiplayer ones and roguelikes. Void Bastards was my real taste of this, and I loved the comic book style, the setting, and the fantastic gameplay. Years later, we now have the next game in this series. Wild Bastards still retains the core of what Void Bastards is, but improves on it in different ways to make this an experience well worth playing.
Instead of another space setting like in the previous game, Wild Bastards went for a Western approach. We will travel through multiple planets and see unique worlds, but each one is based on the American Wild West theme. The overall visuals are still similar to the last game, using minimal detail, bright colors, and paper-like models, but the way developer Blue Manchu utilizes it is fantastic. It still gives it that comic-book style without going too overboard. It’s a nice balance, and I am all for it.
Wild Bastards has a decent story to it, following the reformation of your crew, and it’s intriguing watching each member and how they fit into the family. Thanks to the fantastic cast, it feels like the game has more personality. Each of the 13 members of your crew is interesting, and Price acted nicely. I enjoyed seeing all of their interactions and learning what they would do next.
The gameplay is very similar, but how you progress and interact with your team differs greatly. Before going into combat, you will navigate to different planets across a map representing the galaxy. You choose a planet to go to, which could bring you to a shop, infamy exchange, or go down to planets directly to fight and get loot. Going to different planets will put you on a tile-based map. You choose your team to come down with you and move them across the board, getting loot, upgrades, currency, and partaking in fights against enemies. Once done, you will head to the pickup point and return to your ship to go to the next node on the Galaxy Map.
Each crew member you choose to bring downplays very differently from each other and has specific guns and a unique ability. On the map, you can group up to 4 teams of 2 members each and take turns with the enemy to move around, collect pickups, and go into battles. In these battles, you can swap between the two members freely, who have their health and armor, respectively, and eliminate the enemies in first-person combat. The combat itself feels right and enjoyable, and I love the extra layer of strategy when choosing which crew members will pair up. For example, I loved using The Judge, a powerful rifle with one bullet in the chamber, and Spider Rosa, a faster shooting and lower damage revolver with five bullets in the chamber. There are some armored enemies you need to break their armor, and damage doesn’t count. So, grouping these two crew members, I can use the revolver to quickly get rid of the enemy’s shield and then swap to The Judge to eliminate the foe immediately. You can also pick up an ability open to use your character’s ability to help out. This can range from creating a decoy to using bullet time to help you.
As you play through the Wild Bastards' maps, you could get mods or Aces for your cast of characters. Mods are temporary upgrades that stay on your character until you leave the Galaxy Map and go to a new one, while Aces act as more permanent upgrades like if you were leveling up. Mods act more like equipment; you can place and remove them as often as possible in one of their three designated spots per person. As for Aces, you will pick them up on maps for specific crew members, and after heading back to your ship, you will level them up and choose between 1 of 3 upgrades that will stay on your crew between the galaxies you travel to.
You can try to get everything on each map, but you have a time limit. Spending too much time on the map will result in a boss-like enemy coming in. You can defeat them, but more powerful bosses come the longer you stay, so it’s in your best interest to finish up quickly.
I love how Blue Manchu has integrated all the gameplay systems to create a strategic and enjoyable experience. The first layer has us on the Galaxy Map, choosing which place to go to and what rewards we will find there, which is similar to a node map for most roguelikes (Inscryption, Slay the Spire, etc.). Then, we have the planetary map, with you going across different tiles to get new items and upgrades and partake in first-person combat. And finally, you finish the map and return to the ship, where you can upgrade and modify your crew.
Using abilities can also be ingenious if you are strategic about it. I liked to use The Judge’s kill shot to eliminate the boss who came down to get extra infamy for better rewards. I had a mod that gave me a Killshot immediately, which would one-shot any enemy, and I would use that on the boss. There are multiple ways of doing something like this using each character’s skill set, and you can even do this is awesome.
Wild Bastards' progression does take a little getting used to, though. It would have been cool to see more benefits to leveling up, and although the game does a great job of encouraging you to use your entire roster, I wish you could change the crew’s loadouts to suit your play style. I also didn’t like the feuding system. This is a mechanic that simulates relationships between the characters. They can be neutral, like, or hate each other, and it’s constantly changing. If characters like each other, pairing them up gives bonuses, but if they hate each other, they refuse to go down to planets together. The game encourages you to play as more than one or two characters, and while I do appreciate that, I just didn’t like using some of them. There was even one time where a person was feuding with 3 different others and I essentially couldn't use that character at all.
And you bet you can enjoy all of this on the Steam Deck.
Wild Bastards runs like a dream on the Steam Deck. Without any changes, it can easily run at 90 FPS, and it is a blast. However, while it can run, it drains a bit more than I would like. Generally, it will stick to an average 12W battery drain, but some bigger battles can get it to 20W battery drain. So, to maximize the battery and keep the smoothness, I recommend setting it to 60 FPS, which will get you an average battery of 8W - 12W throughout.
As for settings, you can toggle some gameplay mechanics like running, aiming, move and look smoothing, stand on run, camera sensitivity, deadzone, acceleration, and change audio sliders.
The game does support 16:10 resolutions, and supports both controllers and cloud saves. There are no HDR settings.
Wild Bastards is a fantastic roguelike shooter that has a great gameplay loop that adds a nice layer of strategy to the action. The first-person combat is addicting, although a bit simple; the ways you can pick and choose where to go, who to bring down to planets, and how you upgrade your characters make every choice important. I wasn't a fan of the feuds system, and I do wish I could be more in-depth with progression, but it's an awesome experience through and through, especially on the Steam Deck.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Wild Bastards is a fantastic roguelike that combines strategy and first-person shooter combat, all into one great package that performs well on Steam Deck.
