Image courtesy of Airship Syndicate
I wasn't originally going to post another game review so soon, but this one had been on my radar for a long time and I have a special place in my heart for the company. Wayfinder is created and helmed by Airship Syndicate, an independent video game studio punching well above its weight class in every release they do. Airship is led by Joe Madureira, Joe Mad, who got his start in comics and eventually directed AAA titles like Darksiders and Darksiders II for Vigil Games. Mad took his expertise and love for gaming with him when he founded Airship in 2014. Wayfinder is Airship's latest title, combining steampunk and fantasy to create a looter-shooter RPG that can stand on its own amongst similar games with much larger budgets.
The Good
Wayfinder separates itself from other games in the same vein with a couple of ideas brought to the table. First off, Joe Mad's artwork can be seen throughout the entire thing. Exaggerated features on characters, both hero and villain alike, as well as cartoonish locales bring to mind the original Fable that came out on XBox so many years ago. It brings about a layer of cheerfulness when you're playing that hearkens back to childhood. I really do like the art style in the game, but some may prefer the more realistic look in similar games like The First Descendant.
Another key component to Wayfinder's innovation is in its side stories. The side stories of the game are actually Wayfinder's bread and butter, with the main quest taking a back seat. I'm not really sure why the writing level was so elevated in the side quests as opposed to the main, but I'll discuss that more when I get to The Bad. Regardless, the side quests in Wayfinder are heartfelt. Whether running around Skylight looking for people that can help a town guard get to know his estranged husband better, or helping a boy come to terms with the fact that his father is dead and gone... Wayfinder shines. It pulls you in so that you actually care about these minor characters and what they're going through, even if their quest only lasts 15 to 30 minutes.
Regarding gameplay, everything in Wayfinder is fast-paced. From combat to travel, the entire game is designed to ensure that no one is sitting on their laurels. This is critical in any looter-shooter because it gives the player a reason to keep on coming back. It can certainly be addictive, and this is only pushed further with the fact that there are 8 different characters that you can rotate through to keep it interesting. The level cap for all of them is 30, but there are plenty of hours needed to get there. Playing with different characters and rotating through is nothing new, it's done by virtually every looter-shooter out there, but Wayfinder is a bit different because there are no microtransactions in order to unlock those new characters you want.
Brief sidenote here: Wayfinder was originally being developed by Airship and was going to be published by a company called Digital Extremes. It was going to be free-to-play, with microtransactions peppered throughout, but Digital Extremes pulled out. For better or worse (better in my opinion), Wayfinder was then fully in the control of Airship and they were able to release it in a way they felt best. This means they released the game as a whole package for a grand total of $24.99 and they wrapped up every micro into the final product as simple things that would drop as you play. It's not entirely unheard of as BioWare's Anthem did something similar. Anthem was still peppered with garbage microtransactions but they were completely unnecessary to get all the variations of suits, weapons, and whatever else a player could need to complete the game in its entirety (even on a trophy/achievement level).
The Bad
Okay so we've gone over plenty of good things with Wayfinder, and now it's time to hit up the bad.
One of the first issues that people may have with the game is simply paying for it. There are plenty of other games in the same genre that are "free-to-play" and have been out for years. With that comes a layer of polish that you probably won't find in a game like Wayfinder. Honkai: Star Rail or Genshin Impact see tens of thousands of players in their daily traffic, which typically equates to combined efforts. Wayfinder is much smaller and there are a lot less people playing it, so at times the online component can seem a bit like a wasteland. That said, many people might want to simply play Wayfinder for the story and not the online capabilities anyway.
If those people are only showing up for the story, they are going to be a little disappointed. Wayfinder's main quest certainly isn't terrible, it just isn't anything to write home about. The entire thing can come off a little dark, or perhaps I should say "gloomy," since the best that Airship could come up with as a title for the overarching threat was "the Gloom." Basically your titular character, or one of the eight you unlock, is a weapon against the impending doom that is spreading from... who knows where? The big bad? Who knows who? These are just pieces of the story that many are going to rush through in order to start the next hunt or expedition anyway, but for some they might want to actually know more about the world they're traversing.
There are glitches with some things too. For the most part the game runs smoothly, but there is still room for improvement. One of the trophies that I earned stays locked on my PS5, so I guess this is one game that I won't be getting the platinum for. It completely eliminates any further attempts on getting any of the other trophies for me too. Why bother?
The Greatness
I know that I covered a lot of Wayfinder's faults, but it still is a great game overall. It will keep players coming back to it in order to push just a little farther into "the Gloom" to find out what lies at the end of it all. Was it rushed? A little, yeah. You can tell that Airship began to get a little in over its head towards the end, but I give them kudos for even seeing the entire thing through. No publisher money at all and having to completely fund it themselves? Airship pulled this game out of a nosedive that could easily have been incredibly embarrassing for the small company.
If there's a piece of advice that I could impart on Airship it would be in pointing out that the lore of their worlds, from Darksiders to Battle Chasers, is what makes many of us keep an eye out for their products. Wayfinder fails in this by dropping the ball on one simple thing. A codex. A codex would have done wonders in expanding the lore that many in Airship so lovingly created. That lore can be seen in the side stories and it deserves to be better fleshed out in a simple journalistic option in the pause menu. Give us more of a reason to care!
There's a lot of good that can be said for Wayfinder as a whole. It is most certainly worth your time to pick up and play if you're still on the fence, and at $24.99 it's truly a steal. You will easily pull well over 50 hours of gameplay out of it, and while some of those hours might not be the most memorable ones you've ever spent... others will find a way to your heart. Haha. I had to.
8/10
Glorious
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