Wildgate

I've watched a lot of multiplayer shooters try to bolt two gameplay styles together and collapse under the weight of both. Wildgate mostly doesn't do that, which is the first genuinely surprising thing about it. Moonshot Games, a studio staffed heavily by ex-Blizzard and ex-Riot talent, launched this PvPvE space brawler in July 2025 and produced something that feels meaningfully different from the extraction-shooter pile: a game where you crew a starship with three friends, loot procedurally generated sectors, manage fuel and reactor heat in real time, and then either race the Artifact through the titular gate or just destroy every other ship in the match. Both win conditions are live simultaneously, which creates genuine strategic tension every round. The ship-to-ship combat is where Wildgate earns its reputation. Piloting demands you balance shield uptime against your speed, because shields slow you down. Managing energy distribution across weapons, shields, and engines while your gunners are trying to hold a firing arc on a ship weaving through an asteroid field is legitimately tense, and the TTK on ships feels right: punishing but not instant. Hardpoints let you swap in gear you loot mid-match, so a well-upgraded ship from a successful POI run is noticeably more dangerous than a starter one. That creates meaningful progression within a single session. The on-foot FPS layer kicks in when you board enemy ships, spacewalk out to overload their reactor, or defend your own hull from incoming crew. Zero-G traversal with turbines, close-quarters gunfights inside enemy vessels, a character like Mophs who can turn invisible while boarding: these moments are when Wildgate plays at its ceiling and the ceiling is high. The friction points are real though. The tutorial is effectively useless: it does not prepare you for how the match-level economy actually works, and Versus AI mode is too different from live play to serve as training wheels. Solo queue is a crapshoot. A coordinated four-stack will absolutely dismantle a group of randoms who cannot agree on whether to loot the science lab or start a fight. Weapon balance at launch drew criticism too, with the default assault rifle outperforming most alternatives, though Moonshot has shown willingness to patch based on community feedback. The PvE side of the loop, clearing AI-guarded dungeons and derelict stations, is functional but low-intensity. It is mainly a gearing phase before the real game starts, and players who want combat pressure from minute one will find the early-match loot phase slow. Progression is tied to a battle pass and daily challenges, and some ships and weapons sit behind playtime gates, which gives veteran players a tangible gear edge over newcomers. Performance held up well across reviewed hardware configs, with smooth framerates during multi-ship engagements and clean visual readability in cluttered space environments. Cross-platform play is live, controller support is present, and the game is confirmed Steam Deck playable. The three modes available at launch, Artifact Brawl, Fleet Battle (two twelve-player teams), and the lower-stakes Treasure Hunt, give the game some structural variety. Ranked play and custom lobbies are on the roadmap. The community on Steam sits at a strong positive overall rating, though recent reviews have trended more mixed as the initial hype settled, which tracks with a game that rewards investment but charges a steep learning tax on casual drop-ins. If you have three reliable squad-mates and enjoy games that punish passive play, Wildgate is exactly as good as the pitch sounds once you clear the learning curve. If your usual crew is unavailable and you are planning to solo-queue into randoms, temper expectations significantly.

Fred · Scout Team

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