Airship Syndicate and Digital Extremes have revealed an exclusive closed beta period for the upcoming action RPGWayfinder. This announcement, along with new gameplay footage, was shown in the February 2023PlayStationState of Play where viewers got a quick rundown of the title’s social hub and dungeon zones. What’s interesting is that the combat looks incredibly stylized, arming players with magical swords and guns built for slaying colossal bosses. The game is undoubtedly going in a high fantasy direction, and some may notice thatWayfinderevokes a similar feel as other online, third-person MMOs like Phoenix Labs’Dauntless.
Gamers are likely to see a few similarities betweenAirship Syndicate’s multiplayer projectandDauntless, particularly in characters and world design. LikeDauntless,Wayfinderhas an art style with sharp proportions, glowing ambiance, and surfaces that almost appear hand-painted. In the gameplay department, they also share a focus on cooperative monster battles which mix melee, ranged, and magical combos that seem impactful even from a distance. It feels likeWayfinderwill be welcoming toward newcomers, but players might catch more of a hack-and-slash quality in its dungeons.
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Why Dauntless Fans Might Appreciate Wayfinder’s Dungeons
Some of the most interesting innovations inWayfindercould come with Lost Zones. Promising a play area that’s less static, these dungeons can be modified to fit a variety of challenges. The official gameplay reveal showcases Lost Zones as a discrete location where friends can team up, explore, or hunt down bosses. Those activities might sound familiar to longtimeDauntlessplayers, especially seeing these boss encounters are designed on a similarly large scale.UnlikeDauntless, however, features like locational damage are not seen, though stat-bending abilities could function as a substitute for strategic action intheWayfinderbeta.
Dungeon crawling has remained popular for decades now, but poorly balanced loot can leave players in a tough spot. Lost Zones might fix issues that plague many randomly generated dungeons by giving the audience agency over what they want to experience. According to the fiction, Lost Zones are a product of the Gloom - a corruptive force that warps reality itself. It’s a creative hook that introduces choice in this game’s reward system, asWayfinderplayers are equipped with Gloom Daggersthat open customizable portals with variable enemies and loot drops. WhileDauntlessfocuses on resource collection in the context of crafting, players may find a consistent loop where farming leads to some satisfying upgrades.
Wayfindermight have to be careful about its dungeon crawling as well, consideringDauntlesshad stumbling blocks of its own. Despite its best efforts to provide arena-style hunts,Dauntlessran into issues with Behemoth modifiers, creating a level of unpredictability that was hard to manage mid-battle. For context, those bosses use a combination of elemental effects to keep players on their toes. That is yet another parallel that can be drawn toWayfinderand its curated Lost Zones - so hopefully, the developer can strike an engaging balance in generating those boss dungeons. Thebiggest Behemoth fights inDauntlessrequire proper equipment, butWayfinder’s Gloom Dagger mutators could lead to more productive experimentation.
Exploring a fantasy world full of creative twists,Wayfinderhas the potential to replicate the best bits ofDauntlesswith dungeons as an added bonus. One mismatched feature is character creation; instead,Wayfinderis offering heroes and archetypesas customizable vessels for gameplay. Still, its third-person combat looks to have a lot of flexibility, equipping gamers with firearms and enchanted blades for a comparable flavor of fantasy.
Wayfinderenters closed beta on July 12, 2025 for PC and PS5, and will enter Early Access in May 2023 for PC, PS4, and PS5.
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