Wildgate Open Beta - A Space Battle With Asteroids Ahead

Developed by Moonshot Games (a Dreamhaven studio founded by former Blizzard executives), Wildgate emerges as an ambitious fusion between tactical ship combat and FPS action. During the open beta (June 9th to 16th), the game revealed itself to be a unique proposition: 20 players (organized into 5 crews of 4 players each) compete in 15–60 minute matches to steal a cosmic artifact or annihilate rivals. Inspired by Sea of ​​Thieves with elements of extraction shooters like Hunt: Showdown, Wildgate promises to innovate by combining the tension of loot games with frenetic FPS sessions.

Your Ship is Your Fortress

In Wildgate, players form crews of up to four Prospectors, occupying different roles within the ship, the goal being to defeat enemy ships. Each match takes place in a region called “The Reach”, a procedurally generated environment filled with cosmic storms, alien creatures and mysterious structures. The randomness of these scenarios forces the player to adapt to the environment, one of the game’s greatest strengths in both competitive and cooperative play.

Each player assumes a class (Prospector) with unique functions, similar to the heroes in Overwatch, but with an emphasis on cooperation:

- Explorer: Responsible for the ship's evasive maneuvers, shield management, and use of emergency thrusters. A good pilot can smash enemies into asteroids or escape cosmic storms.

- Engineer: Repairs damage and ship systems, hacks enemy ships, and manages utilities like Electromagnetic Fields to disable shields. If the ship runs out of an engineer during a bombardment, it can doom the crew.

- Boarder: Specializes in reconnaissance and stealth boarding. Can use Attachment Jets to push enemy ships into traps.

- Ship Defender: Controls heavy weapons with tactical targeting systems, like Target Lock to pierce hexagonal shields.

Constant communication is essential. Once in a test match, one team lost the artifact after colliding with a rival ship because the Engineer was distracted by repairing an internal fire while the Pilot ignored a shield warning.

Creativity While Under Attack

The gameplay is fluid, everything happens in first person, even when navigating or using the ships' weapons, which reinforces the need for constant communication.

- Hexagonal Shields: Unlike traditional games, shields require precision. Gunners must aim at exposed parts, while pilots reposition the ship to protect damaged parts, a system praised for creating unpredictable tactics.

- To Board or Not to Board? Boarding rival ships is risky, if the person dies, even the quick respawn (10 seconds) can compromise the crew. For the team to be successful, communication and synchronization are ideal: a Boarder can overload the enemy ship's core while the Defender fires at its shields.

- Creative Sabotage: Items such as Gravity Grenades or Attachment Jets allow the team to create precise tactics to defeat rivals.

- Environmental Hazards: Cosmic storms drain shields, toxic asteroids and "space worms" force constant ship movement. During the beta, 70% of matches resulted in deaths due to environmental hazards.

Wildgate revolutionizes the loot shooter formula by prioritizing the ship over the individual player. Either everyone is united, or the ship will be blown up by opponents:

- Focus on Ship Improvements:* 80% of loot is weapons, modules and utilities for the ship (e.g.: plasma cannons, emergency thrusters). Personal items are disposable (grenades, repair kits), meaning your ship is more important than your weapons.

- Tactical Prospectors: Characters like Kae (tactical teleporter) and the robot ION (immune to oxygen management) are great for strategies. ION became the favorite in the beta for simplifying space exploration.

- Risk Economy:* Looting locations offers rewards, but attracts rivals. Teams that prioritized looting over direct combat had 40% more victories via artifact extraction.

The requirements for Wildgate are:

- Minimum:* GTX 1070 Ti/Ryzen 5 5600X/16GB RAM (1080p/30fps).

- Recommended: RTX 2070/Ryzen 7 3700X (1440p/60fps).

- Performance: Stable in most cases (≥60fps on average), but with stutters in multiple explosions and CPU overheating in menus, issues reported by 25% of testers.

- Flawless Crossplay: Fluid integration between PC/console, with progression via Dreamhaven account. Tools like LagoFast were recommended to reduce lag on transcontinental servers.

- Visual Style and UX: The game's graphics and art are very nice, but the UI/HUD has confusing buttons and unintuitive menus.

The game still needs tweaking, the general feeling is that only skilled FPS players have a big impact, invasion actions, where they can sabotage modules and take control of the enemy ship. Meanwhile, support roles are less valued. In addition, some secondary weapons aren’t very effective, the default rifle dominates the game, while the other options seem ineffective.

Other points to fix:

- Steep Learning Curve: The tutorials are very superficial, which left new players lost in complex mechanics (e.g.: redistributing energy between shields and thrusters).

- Communication Dependence: Players without a microphone were lost. The lack of a robust ping system (like in Apex Legends) ends up isolating casual players and would solve many problems.

- Reset Progression: No progress from the beta will carry over to the official release, something many complained about, as no one wanted to grind during the test.

- Longevity Risk: Like Exoprimal, Wildgate may wither away without a sufficient player base. Its price tag ($29.99 USD) is a risk in a market dominated by F2P.

Wildgate is ambitious and unique, with combat that rewards creativity and teamwork. Its fusion of genres creates memorable situations like dodging a plasma storm while fighting enemies, but it runs into accessibility challenges and casual players.

The game has the potential to be the "space Sea of ​​Thieves" that sci-fi fans have been waiting for, if it can balance gameplay and fun. A highly recommended game for fans of cooperative shooters. Casual players should expect accessibility updates (e.g. expanded tutorials, ping system).

The Open Beta showed that there’s a lot of room for refinement, but it also revealed potential in modern competitive games. In such a saturated industry, this is a differentiator. Wildgate invites us to try something unexpected, trust the team, and improvise in the face of chaos. If they can sustain this game consistently after launch, it’ll be no surprise to see it earn its place among the greats of the genre.

Its long-term survival depends on how Moonshot Games responds to beta feedback. If they fix the learning curve issues, this could be a beacon for creative AA games. If not, it could be just another Exoprimal in the graveyard of promising IPs.