In the Wild West/Space, the Wild Bastards are chased with wild abandon and provide a mildly good time with a few quirks.
Disclaimer: The developers provided an early access code for this Wild Bastards review. However, this in no way affects my views on the game. The opinions formed in this article are solely based on my own personal experience from Wild Bastards.
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Imagine your typical Americana-style western movie. You’ve got the saloon, the water troughs for the horses, the tumbleweed drifting by. Five figures approach on opposite sides of the town, four on one end, and a lone figure on the other. Only one group will leave alive.
As quick as a rattler can strike, the duel was over, and our hero stood victorious.
He then said under his breathe…
“Beam me up, Drifter.”
And he was beamed up to his self-piloting, sentient spacecraft to travel onto the next settlement.
And that’s the game and the review, thanks for reading!
But really, Wild Bastards takes well worn roguelike mechanics and implements them in interesting ways to change things up each encounter.
For those familiar with 2019’s Void Bastards, Blue Manchu changes it up by crafting 13 unique outlaws, chock full of personality, and ditches the randomly-generated player characters from Void Bastards. This gives way to a diverse cast of crotchety misfits who band together to form the deadly gang, the Wild Bastards. And each one seems like a bastard in their own way (except Smoky – he just wants to feed everyone beans).
Unfortunately, at the beginning of the campaign, all but two Bastards are dead. The survivors, Spider Rosa, a four-armed, revolver-wielding spider lady (best way to list it) and Casino, a laid-back, slot-machine-faced robot, nearly face certain doom from the Chaste gang; this certain group of human harbors a vendetta towards the mutant and robot Bastards and is hellbent on eliminating them. It’s up to Spider Rosa and Casino, and a sentient spaceship, the Drifter, to resurrect the other gang members and seek refuge in the fabled Homestead.
More Than a Big Iron on Their Hip
Let’s talk gameplay. It comes in a few different flavors based on what you’re doing at the time. Initially, when piloting your spacecraft, you’re set on an FTL-esque map, with different destinations to choose from. In the campaign, at the end of the map, a new outlaw awaits being resurrected. Once you choose a point, you’re shown what rewards and treachery awaits. As you land, you choose a number of outlaws to explore the world and move them to different spaces with different effects, like a board game. You weave your way to a beacon which will beam you back to safety.
The real action comes from the encounters you have with various adversaries. Showdowns are set up in small arenas with plenty of covers to hide in between saloons, stores and towers. These bite-sized battles last maybe a few minutes at a time and don’t overstay their welcome. There’s no mini-map, but a compass at the top helps show enemies yammering away, which highlights their location. With only two outlaws allowed per showdown, you need to be quick and efficient in taking down hostiles.
Each outlaw comes with a signature weapon and a supermove called a Stunt. I loved to use Smoky, the undead chef, who uses his hand to spread Skinnin’ Sauce for great damage-over-time effects. His Stunt allows three random enemies to also catch fire and suffer from DoT effects. He also LOVES his award-winning barbecue beans.
Side note, speaking of beans, a relationship system helps change up each encounter. The Wild Bastards can either be in a feud, hindering them from going on the same missions together (and providing some funny dialogue), or pals, helping out each other in times of need. Beans can remove a feud or help outlaws become buddies, changing how you can approach missions.
Now, remember, this is a roguelike as well. And there’s a lot of ways you can make your outlaws your own. Mods help vary up either damage, armor or accessory slots for each Bastard. You can either find them or purchase them in shops. There’s nothing like Preach with her Sermon .58 Gatling gun with a +20 ammo; feels like I’m a western outlaw Rambo there.
Once you resurrect an outlaw at the end and clear the vector, you lose it all – mods, money, BEANS, all gone. Rinse and repeat in the new vector and keep on going.
Shootouts can actually be challenging, with every enemy having different weaknesses. However, they aren’t really explained too well through the game. I had to really play around a lot to figure out not just weak points, but what type of damage every enemy is weak too. Data discs can be found on maps, but there’s too much enemy variety (oh no, he said sarcastically) and not enough discs. Data aside, the enemies presented a fun challenge on each map, especially factoring in which outlaws you brought to the planet.
An additional challenge is the Chaste family princes who track you down after you spend a number of turns on the planet. They’re a fun challenge to take on if you need to have an extra umph. I won’t spoil much, but once the campaign is completed, a whole challenge mode opens up, and really adds some extra variety to encounters and maps.
The Sounds, the Art, and the Funky
Every outlaw feels truly unique and full of personality. Each pipes up and chirps at each other in various western twangs. You can tell the voice actors had a lot of fun bringing their outlaw Bastards to life.
What it lacks though is continual music. I like to have some sort of beats while I mow down baddies. Now, there’s the occasional western guitar sound effects that remind you that yes, this is a western-based game. When those little sound bites play though, they do add to the effect when initiating a shootout, getting in the mindset of being an outlaw-cowboy.
Artistically, if you like the look of Void Bastards, you’re gonna love the look of Wild Bastards. It retains the comic book-like art style that I really enjoyed from the first game. It might not be for everyone, but it’s a refreshing contrast to the realistic looks that other first-person shooters like Call of Duty or Halo try to emulate. The strange array of colors on every planet and encounters really make every planet seem alien.
The main menu placing of options is a bit strange. I know it sounds nitpicky, but it’s also the first impression you get when you boot up the game. The UI itself is okay, nothing too special. At times, the compass was fine to use but a little piece of me wish there was more visual indications of enemy placement on-screen. I know the game is partially hide-and-seek with things that want me dead, but I wanna be able to kill them quick too!
The animations on every character, reload, callouts are smooth and provide another layer of depth. I commend Blue Manchu for sticking with the same art style with Wild Bastards. They already took a chance on changing major game mechanics compared to Void, and so I’m glad to see something brought back that drew me to even try out Void Bastards in the first place.
The environments themselves are so varied, and can be affected by day and night. There’s a few nuances though. Nighttime can actually make it very difficult to locate some enemies and almost frustrating. I get that’s probably the point, but when some enemies use darker colors in their designs, it’s more frustrating than necessary. Ladders are a bit strange too, where you teleport from one end to the other; this is make it tricky to find an enemy who is already pumping you full of holes while you’re still spinning around.
With some characters, the animations can take a bit of time to affect enemies. Outlaws like Hopalong take a moment to set up attacks and deal damage while enemies are dealing damage. Especially against some enemy types, like the brutal Ironclads, they can erase lots of armor and health in a flash.
When I look at Wild Bastards as a whole, I find a game which held my attention for a fair amount of hours. I found myself trying out various mods with each of the outlaws, and challenged myself to see how long I can last against the Princes.
The Good
- Captivating art style, designs and environments
- Characters are so full of personality and really feel unique from each other
- Mods, planets and challenge modes give plenty of replayability and high value
The Bad
- Nighttime encounters can be a bit unfair/hard to play through
- Animations can hinder the player at times, including a few weapons and traversal methods on maps
The Scoring and Verdict
- Gameplay – 8/10
- Visuals and Art Style – 8/10
- OST/Audio – 7/10
- Story/World Building – 8/10
- Replayability/Value – 9/10
- Overall Scoring – 8.0
Wild Bastards is a great romp through the galaxy with a great crew of bandits, each full of character. While a few design and animation choices may not be the most player-friendly, the Void Bastards sequel is absolutely worth checking out (and will probably make our next updated top roguelikes list!)
Wild Bastards is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, Nintendo Switch, Steam, and the Epic Games Store.
