Guardians of the Wild Sky
Preview
A World Above the Clouds
EA SCOUT the last line of defense for buying on Steam's Early Access
by Camrin Santchi
previewed on PC
Take to the Skies
Conquering dangerous environs is pretty par for the course with survival video games. Building up a base, accumulating resources, learning what creatures can be avoided or hunted. A big theme within the survival genre is the isolation, the feeling of yourself against the elements. You may run into the occasional trader or something, but primarily everything is up to you.
Taming creatures to work alongside you, however, can really aid in the 'loneliness' aspect of these types of games, giving you a companion and ally of a sort that will be your key to success. In Guardians of the Wild Sky, these monsters are aptly named Guardians, and populate the sky islands in abundance.
Guardians of the Wild Sky plays fairly similarly to other games in this genre, gathering resources, crafting items to capture or otherwise tame the creatures of the environs, and using them to aid you in exploring, fighting, or otherwise. What sets this game apart, however, is the gorgeous sky islands aesthetic, with the game centered around floating islands in a sea of clouds. Right at the beginning, players get a taste of flying an airship, and it immediately creates a desire to make one for yourself and set out for adventure. Theming around the skies continues to be prevalent through most of the early game, with the first Guardian you encounter allowing you to glide and protects you from fall damage, and unlocking the map makes use of flying whales.
The environs of Guardians of the Wild Sky immediately invokes a sense of adventure in how alien it is, an endless void of clouds beneath you, islands and mountains at differing altitudes that make navigation a fascinating task, and creatures evolved to suit the world around them. This atmosphere is standout compared to other games of the genre, and create a stunning first impression.
Floating Lore
Guardians of the Wild Sky sets up its lore early, hinting at arrogance and dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs ultimately leading to destruction and ruin in an attempt to create a god. It's enough to spark interest, but there isn't enough implemented into the game proper yet to say how it all culminates. Whether this is emblematic of the sort of Icarean tendencies players have in these games, constructing gigantic structures and taming hoards of Guardians and still wanting more, or if that's merely a coincidental leaning, remains to be seen as of now.
Early to Rise
Guardians of the Wild Sky is currently in Early Access, and centres its current gameplay around an eight hour demo - each world seed only able to be played for that length of time to keep players in earlier sections that are more polished. Just these eight hours are enough to make players intrigued about seeing more in the future, extending out past the limits of what you are able to accomplish within that time period. The game does show its early access in several features, even messing with the settings can't help with some poor optimization, but that seems likely to change as the developers of Guardians of the Wild Sky get closer to release.
It is hard to judge this sort of survival game without making comparisons to other games, similar to the 'hero shooter' phenomenon that's so prevalent in this day and age, but while Guardians of the Wild Sky has some issues with it's optimization, the creative designs of the creatures and the satisfying gameplay loop make this reviewer excited to keep an eye on this one as it develops through Early Access and towards an official release.
As always, follow Hooked Gamers on Instagram for news updates, reviews, competitions and more.
Watch
The game has potential, but we're not ready to jump in with both feet. If the game interests you, look, but don't touch - yet.
