Wayfinder

Wayfinder is an action game with a mix of online (MMO) elements and game mechanics characteristic of the RPG genre. It was developed by American studio Airship Syndicate - authors of such productions as Darksiders Genesis, Ruined King: A League of Legends Story and Battle Chasers: Nightwar. The game was published by Digital Extremes, a company with extensive experience with games distributed in the free-to-play model, which the developers decided on.

Plot

Wayfinder takes the player to Evenor - a world of magic and wonder, destroyed as a result of a kind of apocalypse, during which the Forerunners killed the celestial Architects. In turn, they are now tracking down the last remaining surviving god. Reality has collapsed, and dark energy has spread throughout the land, causing corruption and Chaos. The ruins of this world have become the domain of bandits and monsters, fighting among themselves for survival and the surviving remnants of material goods.

Players take on the role of the titular Wayfinders - the last remaining warriors powerful enough to prevail over the omnipresent Chaos. Although they are mere echoes of the great heroes from before the apocalypse, they managed to survive the Darkness and return with the power to control Chaos to fight again. Their task is to save the world from ultimate destruction, and to provide its few inhabitants with conditions suitable for life. The ultimate goal, on the other hand, is to kill the Forerunners, whose actions led to all this catastrophe.

Mechanics

In terms of gameplay, Wayfinder is somewhat reminiscent of games from the Monster Hunter series. The essence of the game is hunting down increasingly powerful enemies. The experience and crafting components gained during them allow you to upgrade the hero and his equipment and weapons. The latter are divided into different classes - traditional swords, which work well in combination with shields, powerful two-handed weapons, rifles, etc. Importantly, each murder weapon provides a unique ability, so using two seemingly similar weapons can be a completely different experience.

Specific skills - combat, magic, etc. - also have playable characters. All of them have been designed by the developers, which means that the player cannot create his own protagonist, but only adapt the existing ones to his own visual preferences. Each of the available protagonists has strengths and weaknesses, as well as their own story, which the viewer learns by making plot progress. Each of them can also be upgraded separately - nevertheless, some of the bonuses and mastery points are common to all characters.

The diversity and complementarity of the heroes is important both during exploration and - much more so - during expeditions to the lost zones in the Darkness. Traveling to the latter requires passing through a special gate and using the Dagger of Darkness - a powerful tool that allows you to customize the challenges ahead in various ways. By choosing certain modifiers, we decide, among other things, what enemies and bosses will stand in our way or what crafting materials we will have the chance to acquire.

Technical aspects

Wayfinder offers charming, cartoonish graphics. The title requires a constant connection to the Internet, which means that playing offline is impossible. However, other people are not necessary to start playing, as most of the main and side quests, as well as various activities, can be undertaken alone. When deciding to do so, however, it should be borne in mind that the most difficult challenges offered by the game were designed with a group of players in mind, so they may prove too demanding for a single person.

As befits a production distributed on a free-to-play model, there were microtransactions. However, the developer and publisher made sure that they were not intrusive, and all virtual items that can be bought with real money can be obtained by playing. In addition, a cross-save feature has been implemented in Wayfinder, allowing the game to be saved (in the cloud) on one platform, and then loaded and continued on another.