Worldwalker Games, the indie developers behind the excellent story-generator strategy tactics game Wildermyth, is going into hibernation.
Active development on Wildermyth will end with the release of the new Omenroad DLC. Though support for the game, including its Discord server, social media accounts, wiki, support email and merch store will continue to run. There’s no new content being worked on, just bug fixes.
The use of the term “hibernation” is deliberate, as Worldwalker Games co-founder Nate Austin explains in the announcement post: “We’re an independent studio, which means we’re not answerable to investors. Nobody is shutting us down. We are going into hibernation because we are done with this project.”
Austin also shared his personal thoughts on why it’s calling it time to end development of Wildermyth, and not continue with another new project:
“When I started working on this game, um, 11 years ago, I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. ‘I’ll show them. I’ll show them all.’
“It’s not there anymore. The last crumbs (is that how it works? What kind of chip is it supposed to be? A wood chip? A tortilla chip?) Well, the last crumbs of that chip were brushed away some time ago. I feel like we contributed something positive to the ongoing conversation of “what can a game be?”
Wildermyth released in 2021 after a period in Early Access and was one of the best indie games of the year if you ask us. It combines an RPG with XCOM-esque strategy tactics combat, an SRPG if you will.
But it goes beyond that as the many story encounters, presented in comic book panels, can alter the heroes, physically or their relationships with the other party members, in a campaign where they grow old over time. And you can bring some of these characters again in a new campaign as you slowly build up a roster of your own heroes that carries the scars and memories of their past adventures. It’s fantastic stuff, and that aspect really was probably Austin was referring to having contributed to the “what can a game be?” discourse. There’s not many games where past events based on your decision-making can carry over in the long term, where the player is responsible in writing their own myth into the world.
Check out our review of Wildermyth here.