In the opening hour of my first campaign, two members of my party fell in love, one of them merged with a fire spirit, and another became a half-raven. What’s remarkable about Wildermyth is just how much ground it manages to cover in a short amount of time. That story plays out on screen as a series of comic book-style panels, each frame featuring an accurate image of my character at that point in the story. While more traditional RPG stats like strength and dexterity contribute to the game’s combat, personalities impact the storyline. Each of them have their own unique backstory and their own unique personality, which contributes to their alignment. When you begin a game of Wildermyth, you’re given control of a party with three characters. Character backstories tie into stats, and give the procedurally generated narrative weight and meaning. The writing in Wildermyth is surprisingly good, with flashes of humor throughout.

If it all comes together, it could be something very special. It’s all driven by procedural generation, with care taken to tie long-running storylines together into something coherent. The narrative role-playing game blends micro-doses of thrilling turn-based action with lengthy, comic book-style narrative.

Wildermyth, currently in Steam Early Access, is searching for this middle road. But what if you could have it both ways? What if a game was seeded with moments of dramatic, turn-based tactical gameplay that demand attention while also delivering the kind of wild narrative swings that come courtesy of a rich, complex world spiraling out of control? Thebes is out there living its best life, and the player is just there to bear witness most of the time. They keep trying to rope players in for another mission, but committing upward of an hour to a tense urban engagement in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is a far cry from hitting the “end turn” button in Sid Meier’s Civilization 6 to see what those punks in Thebes are up.įor all its intensity, Civilization’s rounds are far more passive than in other strategy games. Turn-based tactical games, on the other hand, are rarely quite as sticky.

Fans of the Civilization series rave about its addictive appeal, how it keeps pulling them back for “one more turn” before they call it a night.

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