Into the WiLD

Ever fancy yourself becoming a shaman, seeing through the eyes of other animals, commanding the forces of nature? WiLD is an upcoming PlayStation 4 game that allows you to do just that.

Taking control of a shaman in a massive, Neolithic open-world the size of Europe; filled with creatures one can manipulate and possess, WiLD is every tree-hugging New Age follower’s dream come true.

Headed by Michel Ancel, the man who brought us Rayman, the Wild Sheep Studios members spent a good amount of time in the forest gaining inspiration.

The team acclimatized to their project’s demands by familiarizing themselves with the surrounding flora and fauna (and perhaps dancing naked under the moonlight, consuming strange fungi).

This allowed a very intimate production of a plethora of plants and animals taken from the nature-loving members’ experiences. A true sense of legitimacy and love for the wild has been conveyed in the realization of this game.

A short gameplay demo gave us an example of what to expect. A young girl is bitten by a snake, and our hero shaman is tasked with finding a cure. He starts off by swinging his staff around and summoning an eagle.

He then goes down on his knees and enters a trance-like state, which will allow players to take control of any creature around. In this case an eagle arrives before becoming possessed. We’re then soaring through the sky, the incredible scenery expanding below us.

The eagle locates a snake and swoops down to snatch it and brings it back to the shaman. He must now quest to find a ‘Divinity’, a deity that heads each creature’s existence, and ask for a cure for the ailing girl.

The shaman now summons a mighty bear, who he leaps onto and then together bound towards the objective, scattering sheep as the mighty duo stride through the wilderness.

They later come across a tribe of cannibals like something out of 13^th Warrior. In this game, humans will be your primary enemies, and players must utilize a collection of creatures to wipe out antagonistic groups whose connection to the earth is lacking.

The shaman brings down a swarm of controllable crows to begin harassing the fiends before laying into them with the bear, slamming several creeps out of their boneyard settlement with each swipe. A little rabbit is also seen hopping around, the stealthy infiltrator of the shaman’s animal army.

Combat looks marvellously ingenious; turning the tide against humanity using a streamlined crew of mammals, reptiles and birds is fantastic. Switching between your furry/scaled/feathered gang is achieved through a simple swipe of the touchpad, which will instantly knock your soul into the next organism.

Eventually our shaman reaches his destination. Placing the snake in a drawn circle, an enormous scaled arm then reaches out to him, a giant Snake-Goddess emerging to negotiate with the shaman. Taking the form of a huge, naked lady clad in scales, the snake Divinity tickles the shaman under the chin with a glaring nail.

This is where the gameplay demo ends. Whilst demonstrating some mighty fine mechanics, many would be plagued with burning questions about WiLD.

What other animals can be controlled? What are the other Divinities like and what does negotiating with them involve? What are the other tribes like? Wild Sheep Studios has done a great job alluring us.

WiLD is a truly open world. With 8 kilometres of vision at all times, the game is technically endless, a cave man’s No Man’s Sky. One will explore with no HUD, no objective markers, you’re going to do this au naturalel.

Players will rely on more natural resources such as instinct and ingenuity. Developers have stated that the highly unique and individualized properties of the game will allow for many WTF moments that we will be showing to the world constantly with the Share button on the controller.

Another element revealed the other day is the online mode. Players can drop-in to each other’s world, something akin to Bloodborne and Dark Souls. Players will be able to aid each other in quests and on the same token, peck you to pieces with a flock of angry eagles. You can sneakily enter someone else’s world as a frog and hop right up to a mate or foe and they wouldn’t know it’s you.

Players will need to survive in this world, shelter being one of the crucial components. By climbing up a tree, one can create an upgradable tree-house of sorts which will act as a fast-travel and spawning point in the event of your demise.

There seems to be a kind of unique levelling up system in place. Each time a player possesses a creature their knowledge is gained and added to a list of nature-friendly abilities.

In the gameplay trailer we saw the shaman place a snake in a summoning circle which brought its God to the fore. Any creature can be placed in this circle, which will summon its relevant deity, who will then apparently issue the player with a task involving remaining in the particular creature’s body for a certain amount of time, perhaps accomplishing various tasks.

The successful participation as a certain creature will allow the deity to adorn you with the power of the creature, tattooing the shaman with an image representing the being. The deities’ tasks have also been revealed to be often morally tricky in nature at times, such as sacrificing a tribe member.

The game just looks so splendid. WiLD has been crafted in a way that players across the world will begin connecting and sharing experiences on a new level.

The amount of phenomenal intrigue, diverse action and gorgeous mystery loaded into this game means the whole world will be linking to better rationalize and explore what seems to be one of the most potentially magnificent games of 2016 next to No Man’s Sky.