The gameplay is surprisingly fun in Wildstar

 At the first glance, Wildstar is no different from the other games of the genre. The main source of inspiration was, of course, World of Warcraft, because many workers of Carbine Studios previously worked on the Blizzard’s MMO. In the game, however, some pretty original solutions were used. The innovative character development system that allows you to run the game to your liking is particularly noteworthy. In addition to the selection of race and class, the player must one of the paths of specialization. There are four roads – fight, collecting, construction, and exploration. Development of the representatives of the different paths depends on actions taken by the player. For example, warriors are rewarded for defeating enemies, and those who chose exploration receive experience for exploring the world and discovering new lands. Thanks to this solution, the game does not favor any play style. In addition, the gameplay is varied by randomly generated challenges that allow you to get additional perks for your character.

 What’s better than unlocking that devastating new spell, or crafting your first piece of armour, or tearing your eyes from the monitor to speak to your girlfriend for the first time in days? It’s that sweet, sweet feeling of a 22.5% increase to out-of-combat movement speed.

But Carbine Studios have somehow managed to make that familiar feeling even sweeter, injecting raw cane sugar straight into the veins of the mount experience.

In a continuation from the genius housing system, mounts are also heavily customisable. We’re not just talking about shitty low-res emblems either, you can add objects to your mounts as easily as adding a decoration to your house, and they range from cool, to very silly. If you want to put a bowl of noodles on the tail of your lizard mount, go for it, and worry about the messy consequences later.


WildStar remembers what it was like back when you had to actually work towards things in games though, so don’t expect your mount to be handed to you on a plate from the beginning. If you want one straight away at level 15, you’re gonna need to budget wisely from the start (a task made very difficult by the temptation of housing). Of course, this just makes finally getting your mount that much more rewarding.

Also, you can ride around on a hoverboard. Oh, sorry. You haven’t immediately left this page to purchase WildStar yet, I can’t have made myself clear enough. You can own a hoverboard. You can be an intergalactic Marty McFly. Better, in fact, because WildStar’s hover-boards don’t shit themselves when they travel over water.

An MMO should always provide players with something worthwhile to work towards, and WildStar’s crazy, customisable mounts are reason enough for anyone to start budgeting their gold.

There's one secret that WildStar has to anyone unfamiliar, and that's that it's not easy. This might come across as a colorful and light-hearted game, but it's more punishing than you can possibly imagine. Chances are your group will wipe multiple times on the very first dungeon you enter, and you can consider yourself fortunate if you manage to complete it. By level 20 regular monsters require careful skill rotation and movement. If you get lazy you'll find yourself dying a lot. This difficulty permeates itself throughout the leveling experience, and into endgame where content feels much different than other contemporary MMOs. This isn't a game that necessarily tries to hold your hand, it makes you fight and earn not only your levels, but your gear. For hardcore players and raiders, this is great news. For casual gamers, well, they'll either need to be patient or constitute why they're playing the game.