robin.valentine@futurenet.com (Robin Valentine)
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Great moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.
Wildermyth
Year: 2021
Developer: Worldwalker
Mashing together an XCOM-like structure with randomised events inspired by tabletop RPGs, Wildermyth is designed to tell wonderfully emergent fantasy stories. Watching your heroes grow up, fall in love, claim magical treasures, and discover ancient secrets is a joy. But the most fun of all is when one of them gets their head replaced with a wolf’s.
Certain key events during a campaign can trigger what Wildermyth calls a “transformation” in a hero. Whether it’s being cursed by a witch, getting a growing crystal embedded in their eye, or feeling the call of a primal forest spirit, these events leave a permanent mark on your hero, turning them into something both more and less than human. There’s something so exciting about one of your characters suddenly being a wolf-man, or part fire elemental—it’s like getting to indulge in the kind of wild nonsense your Dungeon Master always said “no” to.
Transformations don’t happen all at once. They replace body parts over time, piece by piece. Many of them start at the head, which is brilliant—it’s wonderfully goofy when your party’s newly “Crowtouched” tank just suddenly has a big feathery face, a giant beak, and an appropriately surprised expression.
It adds a lovely layer to the game’s already rich narrative tapestry—any hero with a transformation is instantly more memorable, and their increasingly strange presence in story scenes gives any campaign a great oddball feel. And it gives you fun new toys to play with in combat, too. Many transformed parts grant new abilities, traits, and attacks. A fighter with giant wings can make great leaps through the air—how do you take advantage of that and build around it? It’s a blast finding out.
Most transformations are optional—gaining them is usually a clearly telegraphed choice, and usually it’s up to you whether they progress during the downtime between adventures. But they might as well be mandatory to me, because never in a million years will I deny one of my heroes the right to literal bear arms. As far as I’m concerned, getting as many of my adventurers looking as weird as possible is the goal of Wildermyth. Saving the kingdom can wait until I’ve found a way to give my wizard a frog head.
Clearly the developer is on the same page as me, because the game’s first DLC—Armor and Skins—added a load of alternate looks for transformations, so you can enjoy even more variety in your adventuring freak show.