Deadpan Games’ new roguelite card combat gameWildfrostis impressive. The meticulously designed, visually engaging, unassumingly complex experience shines in harmony with the game's immediate cartoon veneer. Its early hours are not substantively different from its tenth or twentieth, butWildfrost’s mechanical depth manages to be much more effective and absorbing than most other deckbuilders boasting much larger card libraries.
AfterpreviewingWildfrostlate last year the limited demo absolutely impressed, and now a little more storytelling is peppered in throughout the game. At the start of each run, players become a new tribe leader in the solitary outpost of Snowdwell, civilization’s final bastion in a world where the sun has frozen over. These heroes make their way through wintry biomes, battles, and bosses, recruiting new card companions and collecting items, all along a forking road which eventually leads to the Sun Temple.
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Monster Train persists as the most readily available comparison and inspiration; that contemporary classic deckbuilder sharesWildfrost’s prioritization of hero cards, leaders, boss fights, and lane positioning, but there’s much more in-battle flexibility here. Two lanes afford space for a maximum of twelve cards on the battlefield – six for each side – but, in an ingenious stroke, players can hustle around their active cards in between turns without penalty, opening up new tactics at every step and infusing the card-based gameplay with a refreshing feeling of agency. Injured cards can even be shuffled back into the deck to be healed at no cost.
SinceWildfrosteschews energy systems (a rare quality among deckbuilders), virtually all action is predicated on turns and time. Most character cards have a counter value which ticks down to zero, prompting an attack, an action, or a special effect or event. Enemy cards are no different, which grants the gameplay a spinning-plates sensibility that rewards rigorous forward-thinking and planning, knowing that a single missed detail can abruptly cause the tribe leader’s death and squash the run.
These strict expectations hit that sweet spot between frustrating and fair, even from the outset. Achievement-based unlocks do effectively nudge players into their next games anticipating promised potential, with unlockable cards appearing in the Snowdwell town hub when certain conditions are met. RNG rules supreme here, commanding aspects like which three randomized tribe leaders can be chosen from, which card-upgrading charms, companions, or NPCs may appear on the road, and so on. The game also features a set of “pets,” special companion cards which can reliably be inserted into any tribe's decks at the beginning of a playthrough.
Wildfrost's different tribes are all worth spending time with - in fact, the sacrifice mechanics for one of them feel quite similar toMonster Train's Umbra clan - but players should note that tribe selection is always up to chance. This can be somewhat irritating and limiting, because there's never any assurance that all three tribes will be available for the next run after being unlocked; players just have to roll with the RNG punches.
From a certain angle,Wildfrostfeels much leaner than many of its peers. Don’t expect hundreds of charms or unlockable characters, with the game’s thesis prioritizing quality over quantity. That standard extends to its gorgeous and easily readable visual presentation, from the characterful portraits on the cards to the buoyant card animations in combat. While the narrative text is fairly sparse, the culture ofWildfrost's world is so visually evident, drawing the player deeper into it with bubbly animation and a real sense of life on the screen.
Wildfrost’s UI/UX also deserves special mention, translating perfectly to controller – the bulk of the game wasplayed on the Steam Deck, with flawless performance throughout – and its simplicity and sensibility meant that flubbed moves were rare. Battles and map navigation flow in streamlined fashion, making eventual restarts a snappy affair which never dawdles too long on a game over screen.
Small touches like these elevateWildfrostinto the upper tiers of the genre, even while its generally lighter range of content may steer potential buyers away. Once its best qualities come into view, though, that familiar roguelite deckbuilder addiction takes hold to reveal considerable potential, with dozens of encouraging RNG-fueled synergies, lucky accidents which breathe life into additional playthroughs.Wildfrostmight seem a bit bare-bones, but each of its moving parts feels precision-engineered, making for an impressive entry into the genre for the studio and a great value for its asking price.
Wildfrost releases on April 12 on PC and Nintendo Switch. A digital PC code was provided to Screen Rant for the purpose of this review.
