How Building Meaningful Relationships is at the Heart of Wild Bastards

Five years ago, we launched the popular strategy shooter Void Bastards, which millions of you played via Game Pass. Now, we’re excited to announce its spiritual successor, Wild Bastards, is coming to Xbox Series X|S later this year. Wild Bastards maintains the same great gameplay, humor, and vibrant art you’ve come to love from us at Blue Manchu but expands upon it with new features and a new space western setting.

One of the new gameplay features in Wild Bastards is a dynamic relationship mechanic, where it’s your job to manage the bonds between a notorious gang of 13 outlaws — just because they’re in a gang together doesn’t mean they like each other.  

The core loop has you navigate unique space sectors where you’ll beam down to planets, execute heists, and partake in first-person shootouts. If your outlaws are feuding, they won’t work together.

Every outlaw has some sort of relationship with each other. These can be positive (pals), negative (feuds) or neutral. To know whether outlaws are friends or foes, you can check the feuds screen that shares two pieces of information.

On the left side is a relationship dial that displays each outlaw and their relationship status with other outlaws. The important lines to monitor are red solid lines for pals and blue dashed lines for feuds. To the right are the relationship details of a selected outlaw. This will share a list of any feuds or pals. It also explains how an outlaw will help a pal during combat.

So how do you mend bonds and make outlaws pals? Easy! Share beans between outlaws. After all, it wouldn’t be the Wild West without beans. Beans can be purchased at shops or if you’re lucky, found on the planet maps themselves. The Wild Bastards are a fractious bunch, so be careful because feuds can develop each time you bunch them up together on a planet.

It’s important to keep outlaws in good standing with one another, not just so that they’ll work together, but also because outlaw pals will help each other out during tactical FPS battles. Each outlaw has a specific type of help that will automatically trigger when one outlaw is off screen, and their on-screen partner has been hit three times by enemy fire. For example, if Spider Rosa is pals with Casino and Casino is hit three times, she will toss a decoy that distracts enemies. One note, pals will only help each other once per showdown.

The relationship mechanic is one of the newer features of Wild Bastards, and an important one at that because of its influence on combat. There are many more features and tactical combat tips to discover once you play Wild Bastards later this year.

For now, you can wishlist Wild Bastards on the Xbox Store today and keep an eye out for when it releases on Xbox Series X|S!

Wild Bastards

Maximum Entertainment

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

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From the veteran team behind Void Bastards and Card Hunter, Wild Bastards has you travel from planet to planet to recruit, manage and gun sling with a team of 13 outlaws, each of whom has their own weaponry, special power, and growth tree. On planets, you’ll wrangle loot and start showdowns that are then played out in intense, bite-sized shootouts. The Wild Bastards were the most deadly gang in the galaxy until a posse from the puritanical magnate Jebediah Chaste eliminated one outlaw after another. Faced with their own mortality, the two remaining members have teamed up with the Drifter, a mysterious sentient spacecraft, to find and resurrect the dead gang members as they flee to the mythical Homestead. Key Features Heart-Pounding Showdowns – Prove you’re the ultimate gunslinger by blasting an array of enemies in bullet-flying shootouts. Tactical FPS Combat – Use your wits to overcome crafty enemies that utilize cover, flank you, and employ a huge variety of special moves from teleportation to homing poisonous quills. Strategize for Victory – Evaluate each planet’s terrain, enemies, and traits before selecting which gang members you want to land there. Collect items, level up, and use special locations carefully to turn the odds in your favor! 13 Outlaws to Play – Rebuild a gang of 13 outlaws, each with their own unique weapon, stunt, personality, relationships, and ability tree. Build & Maintain Relationships – The gang know each other well, but that doesn’t mean they like each other. It’s your job to manage their dynamic relationships, but good luck getting feuding outlaws to ride together. Keep The Gang Thriving – Accumulate resources to heal injured gang members, level up characters, improve relationships, and more. An Ever-Changing, Lawless Galaxy – Roam the procedurally-generated galactic sectors and planets with varying parameters such as gravity, terrain features, weather, and more. Challenge Mode – After completing the main campaign, a challenge mode unlocks to offer a sequence of challenge sectors with increasingly difficult levels and mutators to modify the play experience.