WARFRAME publisher Digital Extremes previously teased a new game, Project Skylight. As announced at The Game Awards, we now know it’s called Wayfinder.
If you’re into Warframe, then Wayfinder will interest you. It’s a new character-based online action RPG led by the creative director of Darksiders, and Ruined King: A League of Legends Story.
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We had a chance to sit down with a number of the team and talk about Wayfinder, and what new things it will bring to the gaming space.
Game director Ryan Stefanelli explained: “We’ve always wanted to make an online game – one that had a world we could build the game around, one that could grow.
“Even though the game is really a character-based free-to-play online action game, we definitely have MMO-like aspirations for it.
“[Wayfinder is a] culmination of our past experiences on working on action games like the Darksiders franchise which was our first multiplayer game, but then also some of the RPGs we worked on, Battle Chasers and Ruined King, and bringing it all together in an online world.
“That is really what Wayfinder is all about. All of our games have had adventure as a common element, and Wayfinder takes that to the next level for us by letting people do it online.”
It seems the team is sticking to what it knows best, free-to-play live service games, with plenty of updates to keep its players coming back for more.
But how does Wayfinder stand out against Warframe, one of the most popular online games.
Creative Director Joe Madureira says: “As far as how it’s different, when we started this, there was a lot of synergy or similarities with some of the concepts games like Warframe.
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“And I think Digital Extremes was initially very excited about that, but we have also been very careful not to retread the same ground.
“It is a very different game. Obviously, it looks completely different. The world is a synth fantasy, arcane pumped world.
“The art style is completely different. We have a lot of touchpoints, and a lot of learning we can do from Digital Extremes’ experience with Warframe, and why we were so excited to have them as a partner.”
So what makes the art style different from Digital Extremes’ other games?
He continues: “We’re definitely pushing it in a different direction, and as far as Soulframe, we know as little about that as anyone else.
“We’re relying on Digital Extremes to make sure there’s no overlap there. The artstyle of the game is pretty much an evolution of everything we have ever done before.
“We’ve done handpainted games. We’ve done games in Unreal [Engine]. This merges the two. We try to get very illustrated concept art-ish.
“When someone says, ‘That screenshot looks like concept art,’ we get excited by that. Hopefully, we can keep pushing that and, as the years go, make it look better and better.”
According to the developers, anyone who’s played the Darksiders series “are going to feel at home playing Wayfinder”.
There’s a focus on fighting groups over massive battles with enemies who have large health bars, and you’re able to use speedy dagger strikes or big hammer blows, depending on your playstyle.
Wayfinder will have a Closed Playtest beginning on December 13, and the game will be set to release Early Access in Spring 2023 on PlayStation and PC.
Written by Veerender Singh Jubbal and Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.
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