Tonally and ideologically, Wildstar is Borderlands-via-high fantasy, and possessed of a promising sideline in funny, characterful animation. Mechanically, it’s an MMO. See both of those things ably demonstrated in developers Carbine’s latest trailer, entitled: ‘What is Wildstar?’
The most intriguing part of Wildstar’s planetary menagerie is its Warplots – missile silos / allotments bought up and assembled by groups of enterprising players. Player warparties can then queue up for Warplot PvP, be matched against similarly fortified opponents, and tear pieces from others’ castles.
In fact, Carbine have ripped more than a few pages from Ultima Online’s faded, fakespearean novel, filling Wildstar with options for player housing, which can be custom-build to reflect “your own enigmatic, schizophrenic or sociopathic tastes”.
Beyond its commendable adventures in real estate, Wildstar offers all of the dungeons, raids and PvP battlegrounds one might expect from its genre, and wraps up the whole shebang in ‘action combat’, some of which you can see happening noisily below.
Wildstar enters beta soon, and sign-up is open already. After that, it walks out across a crowded marketplace, competing for your time with games just as colourful and nearly as loud. Will it win your attention, or merely your curiosity?