Wayfinder Looks to Reconnect With the Spirit of MMOs Past

Wayfinder does not intend to be a brainless loot-grind or a dispiriting digital roulette wheel. Digital Extremes, the studio behind Warframe publishing this new fantasy RPG, is aware of all the pitfalls that tend to sink modern multiplayer games; how, more often than not, it feels like the designers are actively trying to take advantage of its players. But after a few hours with the game, and a gaggle of rollicking dungeon crawls and hubzone idle time, it’s clear that Wayfinder is trying to harken back to a more wholesome age of cooperative monster slaying. If you too grew up on World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and Final Fantasy XI, Digital Extremes intends to bring you home.

In its most simple definition, Wayfinder is an MMO. Players take control of a slew of heroes — known as, you guessed it, Wayfinders — which are subdivided into classic tank, healer, and DPS roles. These characters come pre-equipped with names, backstories, and a League of Legends-style tray of three abilities and an ultimate, which means you aren’t going to be nurturing a mute, enigmatic player-character towards the level cap. The combat itself is steeped in that quasi-RPG magic that defines Destiny, Borderlands, and yes, Warframe. (Expect a lot of white damage numbers to come flying out of your opponents, but you’ll also be asked to aim your weapons, time your parries, and dodge-roll out of attacks.) You’ll be outfitting your roster of characters with a huge, interlocking talent tree, which will juice the integers of whatever build you’re currently targeting. In that sense, Wayfinder is well within the thrall of some of the most popular video games on the planet, but in the couple hours I’ve spent on the live servers, I haven’t grown bored by that familiarity.

A lot of the appeal can be chalked up to Wayfinder’s character design. The studio behind the game, Airship Syndicate, most recently worked on Ruined King, the League of Legends-based RPG, and you can see the influence of Runeterra’s gorgeous cartooning bleeding through. I spent most of my time with Senja, a yoked gladiator donning a spiky blonde haircut and a heavy, Kratos-sized ax. She served as the tank for most of our expeditions, and is buoyed by a mechanic where her abilities increase in potency as an unseen audience is whipped up into a frenzy. Senja showboats, flexes, and gestures to the cheap seats before she lines up another blow. When it connects, the crowd goes wild. It’s hard to step behind Senja’s controls without immediately adoring her vibe.

You can see the influence of Runeterra’s gorgeous cartooning bleeding through.

This is what Wayfinder will undoubtedly hang its hat on. Like Warframe, progression here seems to be mostly built around unlocking new characters, and from the ones I played, they all immediately glimmer with charisma and potential just like Senja. (Another Wayfinder I played, known as Niss The Shadow Dancer, is outfitted with a cocktail of shinobi-esque mobility options that make quick work of her enemies.) You’ll be taking this crew into the Overlands — a shared adventuring space for all players, like Blizzard’s Elwynn Forest or Bungie’s Europa — as well as “Lost Zones,” Wayfinder’s parlance for randomized dungeons, where you will carve through the modulated corridors in search of treasure and glory. Airship has made it clear that players will be given a ton of control over the loot that pops up in these dungeons to avoid the soul-killing grind of repeating the same instance, indefinitely, while searching for a furtive one-percent drop. The studio has learned from the mistakes of its forebears.

Everyone involved with Wayfinder kept hammering one point home over and over again: That this game, at its core, is an MMO. If Airship’s dreams come true, they’ll have created a lively realm of bustling General Chats, breezy dance contests, and the tragedies and triumphs of tough, mechanically-rich boss fights. By the end of my demo, it became clear that the people who made this game miss the golden age of the genre, and are desperate to recreate the conviviality of sharing a dungeon with a party of friends. From everything I’ve seen so far, Wayfinder looks to be up to the task.