"We have to earn it": Wildgate is a frenzied sci-fi shooter from former Blizzard devs, but this multiplayer isn't riding any coattails

Dreamhaven has been gradually ramping up its gaming portfolio. Founded by former Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime, there are already a few projects in the works, and now one of its studios – Moonshot Games – is debuting its own project: the chaotic space-scoundrel sim Wildgate.

Wildgate can feel a little difficult to describe. Sea of Thieves might be the closest touchstone, with its crew antics and rich world to explore. There are shades of battle royales, extraction games, and more. But really, Wildgate feels all its own in practice.

Treasure planet

Multiple crews enter the dangerous space around the Wildgate, and all are hunting one of two things: each other, or the Artifact, a powerful piece of technology everyone is trying to pick up and extract before anyone else does.

To get out with the Artifact, though, you'll need some tools, better guns, and better cannons. Teams are encouraged to mine ice and asteroids for coolant and fuel, then head into points-of-interest to defeat the mini-dungeons within, getting a boatload of loot in the process. Some are extravagant, like a new laser-blade meant for ramming other ships, while others – like the security system – are less cool, but still necessary for keeping unwanted boarders off your ship.

Because yes, other crews can board, attack, plunder, and sabotage your ship. Each crewmate can launch into space and try to get onto other ships if they see them. While you do respawn back on your ship after a death, a little bit of downtime means one fewer person stopping boarders from stealing cannons and setting the ship's generator to overload.

As Moonshot co-founder Dustin Browder describes it, the studio wanted everyone involved to be able to contribute and have some impact. Working on a game like StarCraft, contributions could be difficult if they weren't coming from top-level players; but the open-ended chaos of Wildgate allows both developers at the new studio, and players in the game, to add to the conversation.

"Like, we wanted to make a game that when we ran into somebody, they said, 'I played Wildgate, do you know what happened?' I have no idea,'" Browder tells me in an interview. "It could have been anything, right?"

Crew combat

This chaos ramps up fast. Early portions of a Wildgate match feel like the calm before the storm, as you and your crew drift around, scouting with probes and identifying good areas for loot. Finding the Artifact early could be a boon; while the dungeon holding it can be a little tough to clear, it means you could potentially start a race for the finish when you want. Certain mechanisms guarantee that everyone knows when the Artifact's location is known and when it's in play, though.

So as the action ramps up throughout the match, everything gets more intense. Thoughtful approaches can be good, but so can bull-headed determination. In one match, we win a desperate sprint for the Wildgate by diving through the chaos, like a trout leaping up the river. In others, we play the information game to our advantage, storming a ship while a team tries to clear a point-of-interest and stealing all their hard-won loot.

As Browder describes it, there's an up and down. "If you want to sit and play a game of Wildgate, there will be periods where you're at a two, in terms of intensity, and then periods where you're at a 10 in terms of intensity," Browder says. "And if it's just 10 all the time… oh my god, I can handle that for half an hour and then I'm done, right?"

At one point, my crew's ship rams into another object and tilts the whole apparatus, shifting the internal gravity of the ship and completely shifting our plane of reference, right as we were being boarded. Within fractions of a second, I'm re-orienting and holing up against a wall, firing up at doors that were previously across from me.

It's not just shooting cannons and guns, though. Browder highlights that putting crosshairs on heads is only a fraction of what makes a winning space crew. Wildgate has piloting, using probes, moving loot around, and even little sabotaging missions to contribute – everything adds up to lead to success beyond the immediate gunfights.

Using tractor beams to tug enemy ships into minefields, dropping ship shields so we can ram them at higher velocity, dusting prospective boarders with a massive laser cannon; the big moments in Wildgate aren't just exciting, but something I rarely get to experience in most other games.

Space route

As far as progression and game-over-game evolution goes, Wildgate takes some interesting cues. The loot you pick up in a match stays in that match, so there's no extraction-style carryover between ships. Rather, the way you build up is putting experience and levels into various passes, unlocking new starting weapons, gadgets, and even crew members to play as. Each has their own small benefit, whether detecting people on your own ship or not having to breathe in space. Moonshot doesn't want to pigeon-hole its players with those archetypes.

"We're intentionally avoiding things like the piloting character, right?" Browder says. "The gunnery character. Like, I would hate for you to play the piloting character and I play the piloting character, we both end up in the game and I'm like, 'I'm the pilot!' 'No, I am!'" The game director says Moonshot wants players to flow through the ship, taking on different roles as the situations arise.

A premium model is what Moonshot Games is looking at right now, and the team doesn't want power locked behind anything. Moonshot studio head Jason Chayes says the team intends to release gameplay upgrades, new things to play with in the Reach, all included once you own Wildgate. What the team is thinking about are ways to evolve season-over-season, shifting the wild space around the Wildgate in each match. For now, it seems like Moonshot Games is focusing on getting Wildgate launched.

Even absent any progression, though, Wildgate has its hooks in me. It's not just the fact that it feels like a sandbox for creating space-faring chaos and incredible moments. I do love the feeling of boarding a ship, taking out some crew, grabbing a cannon and hitting my teleporter to return to my ship with a new toy. Firing massive cannons across vast reaches of space or emerging from the asteroid dust clouds to rain fire down on other ships feels fantastic.

Blast off

Wildgate has the right cadence, the rise and fall, and just enough push to get me to play one more game. During our early sessions with Wildgate, it was easy to take both a win or a loss in stride, heading right back to the matchmaking queue. Every new 'drop' into space elicits new challenges and experiences, whether that's a strange point-of-interest to explore or an enemy ship arriving a lot closer than they did in the last game.

For a debut project, Wildgate certainly doesn't feel like a scrappy new effort. It shouldn't either, as it's got some big talent, Browder and Chayes included. But live-service games have sometimes been boom-or-bust. For every Marvel Rivals success story, there is a Concord-shaped failure to launch. When asked about whether this is a concern for Moonshot though, the pair gives an interesting answer. First, Chayes says, players are looking for games that are going to grow and evolve over time, as Moonshot plans to do with Wildgate. The team also doesn't want to take player commitment for granted.

"Y'know, we're at a point now where we're not at Blizzard anymore. We're at a small start-up, and we have to earn it," Chayes says. "Like, we're not there yet. We 100% recognize that we're coming from a different position and it's very important to us that when we release this game, it's a game that is a fun experience, it's quality, it's getting our values, and it's something that if you're excited about it, you can keep coming back to over time and continue to see new things."

Wildgate feels enough like its own thing, with enough to set it apart and elicit some incredible moments from the sandbox it's formed, to stand out in a packed and competitive landscape. Time will always tell, but for now, Wildgate is charting its own path through the stars. A chaotic, scrap-filled, laser-ridden mad-dash for the Artifact that's worth undertaking.

Wildgate will launch on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S in 2025, with a planned playtest due between April 10-14 this year.

Dreamhaven are cooking up plenty of great looking games. Fantasy RPG Sunderfolk's weapon-wielding animals and phone integration welcome veterans and newbies to tabletop-style tactics, developed by Secret Door.