Wildermyth (2021) is a medieval role-playing game about diverse heroes and themes. You take on evil in a number of stories, each with different heroes and settings. The focus is on the characters as much as their adventures, who are believable, diverse and fully fleshed out. Themes of friendship, family and acceptance are established as these adventures play out over the decades of our hero's lives. Play involves selecting three characters, and then taking on tasks and missions. Between the action, you can spend time fortifying territories and building bridges across rivers. As you progress there are key decisions to make for your characters that affect the outcome of each story and the development of their relationship and personality. There are also randomly generated side-quests that can be attempted, that offer advantages and disadvantages to your abilities.
When you enter a battle, play switches to a turn-based grid system. Heroes are represented in paper cut-out style and take turns to move or attack. Along with the usual weapons and abilities, you can "interfuse" with objects to cause them to catch fire, throw out shrapnel or entwine enemies.
Wildermyth is most unusual for its character development. As you play you pick up different positive and negative traits as well as develop specific relationships with other characters. As you complete missions and progress, your heroes grow older. This not only affects their appearance and statistics but means they go through life changes. Our examiner, Ellen Robertson, first checked Wildermyth 3 years ago. It was re-examined by Thom Robertson and updated 3 weeks ago.
This is an Adventure, Battle and Narrative game with Collecting, Communication, Fighting and Role-Play elements. You can play with 1 to 4 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online. On console, there is a local co-op multiplayer mode for up to four players to control characters on their adventure.
Play Time: It takes between 3 hours and 4 hours to play a round of this game. More time is required to try out different characters and revisit adventures. When you do, you can meet younger versions of characters you've developed on previous runs - an unusual and rewarding feature that encourages multiple play-throughs.
Rated PEGI 12 for Mild Swearing. This game contains bad language including 'b*!%$@d' and 's*!t'. Characters are cartoon-like and, in combat, they move as if they are cardboard cutouts, with no separate animation for their body parts. They have health bars that deplete and when defeated, will fall and be shown as a greyed-out silhouette on the tile on which they were killed. Characters can be “maimed” in battle, but this is only implied through text and is not shown. After the battle ends, maimed characters will be seen with eyepatches or hooks where their hand is. No blood or injury is shown.
Rated for younger players in Australia. Rated IGEA PG.
9+ year-olds usually have the required skill to enjoy this game. Still, it's important for parents and guardians to consider the maturity required to process the game content. Children at elementary or primary school will enjoy the characters and adventure here. Combat is free of blood and this sticks to the family-friendly style. There is real substance here for youngsters to get lost in and enjoy like the Beast Quest books.
Written by parents for parents, the database complements the in-depth discussion about video game addiction, violence, spending and online safety in the Taming Gaming book. We are an editorially independent, free resource without adverts that is supported by partnerships.