Wild Assault didn’t just provide well-designed anthro characters, it committed time to developing animations that added to the uniqueness of each species. A third-person shooter, Wild Assault has you engaged in battle as one of 10 valiants, using their unique powers to capture territory or objective markers and deplete your opponent’s points. Early access starts with 2 game modes, Conquest and Raid, and two maps, the Mojave Desert and the Rocky Mountains. Mojave’s only playable in Conquest, while the Ricky Mountains are in both Conquest and Raid. Raid matches use one of two halves of the mountain map, with one side attacking, the other defending. Defenders win once the attackers lose all their points or time’s up. Attackers win when they capture all points. Both maps are littered with lots of cover. Ironically, this makes it easier for people to sneak around and kill you without noticing. I favored Raid more, for faster matches and a clearer idea of the battle lines, though the half-sized maps feel small with 40 players fighting for objectives. They recently added a Deathmatch for a limited time, with two teams of 8 participating in a classical battle to wear out their opponent’s points.
Because it’s a third-person shooter, you get to enjoy the hard work Combat Cat committed to developing movement that captures the fantasy you’re playing beast characters. When Uly the meerkat digs, it’s usually with his paws. Norman the tiger is deadly in melee, with powerful claws and pounce attacks. Hongying the rabbit hops while sprinting, and because of her strong legs, she easily clears most obstacles. When Marquez the skunk uses her ultimate ability, she falls on all fours with her tail raised in warning, and launches gas bombs in a large area. Many of the cast have unique quadrupedal sprints, except for Zhenshan the panda; he rolls, freaking hilarious first time seeing it. These details that made me laud their work, because few games bother making anthros run like beasts, let alone make multiple unique run cycles!
As the gunplay’s concerned, the time to kill is short and the recoil is high! Without the right attachment, uncontrolled firing can have you spraying everything. Though there’s loads of weapons and attachments, some options feel considerably better than others. Though you level up guns to get more attachments, those level-ups are universal for all valiants that use that weapon, and you have a generous number of weapon boosts to speed up the process.
I default to Marques as my primary character, since I’m often on the losing side of gunplay. Her poison bombs and mines are great for controlling the battlefield, not requiring precision. It’s not great for kills, but enemies usually don’t want to linger in toxic fields, and I’m fine racking up assists. You can freely change roles, which is good because some battles require adapting new tactics. Sometimes I use Uly, his abilities are good for scouting and granting your squad an additional respawn point to flank objectives.
Playing different characters gets that character experience, which is used to unlock new weapons and talent points to boost your abilities. Every match, you unlock or make progress towards something, and progress is fast. There’s a free battlepass at early access, and as of this article, no micro-transactions during the early access period; however, there are different currencies, including one needed to unlock additional valiants. Gaining medals to unlock valiants is perhaps my biggest issue with launch, since medals are usually attained by making progress in the battle pass, and you can’t practice with valiants before you buy them. Combat Cat’s been receptive to feedback and swift in implementing changes, so I believe they’ll make the right adjustments.
Wild Assault is available for early access right now on Steam.
