Ahead of PAX East 2026, CGMagazine had the awesome opportunity to check out the Wyldheart demo early. Upon first impressions, the graphics and overall gameplay experience took me back to simpler times playing RPG games online like RuneScape with my friends. I remember chatting on MSN Messenger and/or talking beside my friends on computers in the public library. Even those who are older than me who have played EverQuest or World of Warcraft will understand the feeling of entering a dungeon with friends.
Wildheart is a brand new co‑op action RPG set in a rustic fantasy world, being published and developed by the newly formed independent studio, Wayfinder Studios. The team barely has over 10 people, but has beautifully crafted this expansive world, with many team members being huge tabletop fans. I had the awesome chance to play alongside Wayfinder Studios’ Creative Director and co-founder, Dennis Brännvall, and Marketing Director, Erin Bower.
While playing the first part of the co-op campaign, Brännvall and Bowers explained how Brännvall and his fellow Swedish ex-AAA veteran colleagues first had the idea to create a co-op RPG adventure game. “Dennis and the other co-founders, when they first came up with the idea for the game, were all still working at EA DICE. They used to get together and play Dungeons and Dragons together in the evenings.”
Then, Dennis had a conversation with others, where he asked, “If you could work on anything, what would it be? And everyone was saying RPGs, we’d want to do an RPG.” The rest was history when Brännvall and his co-founders formed Wayfinder Studios. Brännvall realized that since EA DICE would not “deviate from shooters”, it would be a great opportunity to “do their own thing.” Ultimately, Wyldheart was created out of passion, and it showed—despite having a really small dev team!
Before players begin their campaign, there is a classless character creator/generator. Even though Brännvall mentioned the options were sparse, they were still quite impressive. So far, there are three playable ancestries: Halfling, Human, and Ogre. There are also 19 roleplaying backgrounds, which consist of roles like Fisher, with a description that reads: “You pulled living things out of cold water.”
The Fisher is a funny role because your starting weapon is a fishing rod, similarly to how the Baker has a rolling pin as their starting weapon. But there are regular roles too, like the Squire who starts with a longsword. The great part is that players are not meant to stay attached to their weapons. Weapon durability is fairly low in the beginning, so swapping weapons is encouraged. But weapons can be repaired at campsites, and loot can be shared among the party if one person has a spare weapon to pass to another player.
“Ultimately, Wyldheart was created out of passion, and it showed—despite having a really small dev team!”
I also checked out the skill trees, which allow players to specialize in Sword, Axe, Mace, Bow and Staff techniques under the Weapon heading. There are also two other main skills for my Halfling Fisher: Adventuring and Magic. Adventuring had subsections listed as Attributes, Survival, and Dungeoneering. Then, Magic had two subsections called Animism and Elementalism.
Both Brännvall and Bower detailed that players can play Wyldheart solo or with friends, but the game difficulty will adjust based on the number of players. Each campaign is about 10 hours of gameplay. Like many co-op games, one campaign can only hold four players total but has 20 character slots—enabling flexible group play. A cool part about the game’s dialogue is that the dialogue affects future decisions, meaning the campaign has some thoughtful branching story elements.
Bower explained that one of the best parts of the game is how players who “love crafting and gathering, they can spend an hour or two doing that, but the rest of the group can jump straight into a dungeon.” This can be done without having a singular host player. Essentially, this could lead to some asynchronous participation. It seemed that the game intended that friends would be on Discord calls while playing/fighting in dungeons together, but could coordinate some solo play to grind on their own, too.
In terms of the overall gameplay experience, Wyldheart was intuitive to learn if you have played those aforementioned RPG games. The controls were similar too, with WASD movement, left mouse click being Primary Weapon Attack, and right click being Block, Parry, or Secondary Weapon Attack. Then, certain numbers can switch to potions, interactable items, or other weapons. Brännvall stated how it was similar to the Elder Scrolls combat system, which was true.
Combat in Wyldheart was fairly typical of the genre as well when facing off against many skeletons and slimes in the first dungeon. I liked how they included realistic actions and sound design affecting gameplay. For example, I can find lockpicks for certain locked doors or kick them open. However, the penalty for kicking doors open was that it could alert enemies. To make matters even more difficult in a group campaign, friendly fire is on—so planning who attacks what is important.
Aesthetically, I was pleased with the hex tile movements between regions. I saw the tabletop inspiration with this visual design because it looked like the hex tiles in Catan. The map also looked almost like the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 map as well, with the dreamlike effect lighting and tiny characters. Dungeons are also designed with hidden traps and secret compartments, which add a layer of replayability and discovery through multiple playthroughs.
As far as we all know, Wyldheart will be launching its Early Access soon. On the Wyldheart Steam page, the dev team wrote that they “hope to finish the Early Access period and release our 1.0 build at some point in 2027.” Additionally, they have already disclaimed that the price of the game would rise as the game leaves Early Access and more content and features ship. Be sure to check out the Discord to stay updated, and see and provide feedback for the Early Access.
