Dev Update #1: The Road Ahead

Hey prospectors, 

We're now officially a month out from Wildgate’s launch—and it’s been a hell of a ride.

Since Day 1, we've been actively listening to your feedback as well as paying close attention to the health of the game. While we've already implemented some small updates to address key bug fixes and balance changes based on your input and other insights, our work is just getting started.

We’re going to cover a lot in this inaugural dev update, so buckle up!

 

THE TL;DR™

If you’re busy or just browsing, here are the highlights...

• Regional prices adjusted and 34% off Steam sale now live
• Versus AI updates: Now grants XP, two difficulty settings coming soon
• Mid-season patch planned for early Sept—weekly credit quest, balance changes, and more
• More anomalies with better variety are on the way
• Free trial in the works (!!!)
• Player rewards: 1200 credits for Month 1 purchasers + exclusive title for early adopters
• All seasonal Adventure rewards can now be unlocked via gameplay (no more premium track!)
• Season 01 and custom lobbies are still on target for later this year
• Future seasons, new areas of the Reach, and competitive play are on deck for development

 

 

Still reading? Great! 

Below we’ll dig more deeply into the team’s priorities over the next two months, breaking down what’s effective as of today as well as what’s on deck for the next 30 to 60 days. (PS - This is just a snapshot of our work. Our plans can and will evolve as we learn more about what’s best for Wildgate together.)

 

WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY

🎉 STEAM SALE THIS WEEK

One thing we’ve heard a lot over the past month is that many of you really want to play Wildgate—or, more often, that you really want to play Wildgate with your friends and family. We know not everyone can afford $30 USD right now, so diving into the Reach hasn’t always been easy. 

We want to make that decision easier, and we’d love for you all to expand your crews. Something that we can do immediately to help out here is put Wildgate on sale on our largest platform. So, starting today, the game is 34% off on Steam—bringing it below $20 USD through August 28.

To answer the question that some of you are probably asking: We don’t have plans right now to make Wildgate free-to-play. Instead, our current goal / approach is to make the game feel worth its upfront cost for as many players as possible through ongoing updates and content drops. That said, we’ll be doing more sales in the future and, as a team, we’re going to be continually evaluating our price point across all platforms and regions (and will remain open to making further changes as needed to keep the game healthy).

NOTE: We’ll be hosting similar sales on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series. Stay tuned!

 

 

🏷️ REGIONAL PRICE ADJUSTMENTS

Wildgate launched at a price that was too high in certain regions, and we heard the frustration loud and clear. As of this update, prices have been adjusted in most affected countries—including Brazil, Ukraine, Russia, South Africa, as well as several countries in Latin America, MENA, and the Commonwealth of Independent States, and more. We hope that this makes the cost of Wildgate more accessible to more players around the world.

NOTE: These adjustments are already live on Steam and Xbox Series X|S and we’re working to bring them to PlayStation 5 as soon as possible.

 

☄️ VERSUS AI NOW GRANTS XP

AI mode has been one of the most requested areas for improvement, and we agree it needs to offer more. This mode is something we’re going to continue to work on over the next few months, but as of today’s hotfix you can now earn XP by playing it. It’s a baby step, but one we can take immediately!

 

🎁 NO MORE PREMIUM SEASONAL ADVENTURE TRACK

While this particular change will be relevant later this year, it’s still important to bring up now. 

We’ve talked about this internally for a while, and feedback from players made our decision here crystal clear. Beginning with Season 01, all content included in our seasonal Adventures will be available to everyone at no additional cost. This means no more premium track! You’ll be able to unlock related rewards simply by playing, including both gameplay content (e.g. new prospectors, ships, weapons, and equipment, depending on the season) and a robust suite of cosmetics. 

(Reminder: Although new Adventures will be added each season, they will not be time-gated. This means that no matter when you may start playing Wildgate, all previous seasonal Adventure content will be available to you to progress through or complete at your discretion.)

 

 

✨ A TOKEN OF THANKS

If you’ve been with us since launch, thank you for being part of Wildgate’s first steps. As a small gesture of our team’s gratitude, we’ll be adding 1200 credits to your account over the next couple of days. (This one-time grant will be shared with any player who purchased Wildgate before August 21.)

 

MID-SEASON PATCH (EARLY SEPT)

🤖 LEARN vs AI + PLAY vs AI 

As part of our ongoing commitment to improve "Versus AI" in Wildgate, we’re going to be splitting our current mode into two different difficulties: Learn vs AI (easy) and Play vs AI (hard). This should allow you to use Versus AI in a way that can better match your goals—whether that’s building familiarity with the Reach or running a more relaxed co-op session with friends. 

 

 

💰 WEEKLY CREDIT QUESTS

We’ve seen a lot of feedback around Wildgate’s in-game shop, and we’re taking that to heart. As we’re working out what our longer term plans are for this feature, there’s one specific pain point we want to try to address with a shorter-term solution—that shop content can feel inaccessible to players who don’t have a lot of extra income.

To address this, we’re adding a weekly quest that awards 200 credits on completion.This is ultimately an experiment; our current plan is to have these quests run through the start of Season 01. We want to make sure that we’re able to maintain a healthy in-game economy, so there’s a balance we need to be able to strike here. While we’re finding out what that is (and building out those longer term plans, as noted), we’re happy to give more players the opportunity to access more types of cosmetics. 

 

 

🌌 MORE REACH ANOMALIES

We’ll be keeping the Reach fresh with a steady flow of new anomalies in the weeks ahead. These anomalies (which currently include but aren’t limited to new objects, hazards, ship loot, POIs, and more) will continue to come online as part of our bi-weekly updates, which drop every other Thursday. Once added, anomalies will remain part of the game's randomization pool. 

Based on your feedback, we’ll also be adding MORE anomalies to our bi-weekly updates, as well as adding new types of anomalies to increase the impact these drops can have on your in-game experience. Some bi-weekly updates may have just one anomaly, and others may even have three!

 

 

⚖️ ONGOING BALANCE CHANGES

We’ll be sure to take advantage of our mid-season patch to continue to balance, tune, and refine our prospectors, weapons, equipment, loot, and more based on your feedback. 

 

NEXT 60 DAYS

🛰️ FREE TRIAL 

Not everyone is ready to commit to a game before trying it. To help new players see what Wildgate offers, we’re working on a free trial set to arrive within the next 1-2 months. It will give anyone the chance to explore the world, play matches, and decide if it’s their kind of game. Wildgate is such a unique experience, and we’re excited for more people to discover and hopefully, love it!

 

 

♻️ LOADOUT CHANGES IN LUCKY DOCKS

This one is pretty straightforward. You’ve asked to be able to change your loadout in the Lucky Docks, so we’re making that happen. This change won’t be able to make our first mid-season patch, so we’ll be adding it to another TBD patch set to land before Season 01.

DID YOU KNOW: When you’re hanging out in the Lucky Docks, that’s actually when the Reach is being procedurally generated for your match!

 

 

🏅 INFAMY LEADERBOARDS

We know many of you are curious how you stack up against other players. So, we’re building out official Infamy leaderboards so that you can check your ranking at any time. These boards will start as web-based and, if you like them / find them useful, we’ll explore adding them directly into the game client.

 

 

🚀 EARLY SUPPORTER TITLE

We want to recognize players who stepped in early and showed the willingness to join us from the start. Anyone who purchases Wildgate before October 21, will earn an exclusive title—marking you as one of the first through the gate. While Wildgate will keep moving forward, our OG gatecrashers will always be remembered as the ones who helped us pave the way for space criminals everywhere. 

 

THE ROAD AHEAD

As a team of developers, we chose to do something a little ambitious with Wildgate and we know the road ahead will be tough. There’s a lot of competition out there vying for your time, money, and attention, and we have a lot of catching up to do to remain in the ring. 

This first month has shown us a lot about where and how Wildgate needs to grow. The updates we’ve laid out here are about adding more to do, making the game easier to jump into with friends, and giving players like you good reasons to stick around. And this is just the beginning, too; while we primarily shared our focus for the next 30-60 days, we’re in this for the long-haul. We’re going to keep building and improving the game, so that each time you return to the Reach, there’s something new and exciting to discover.

 

 

And there you go…our first dev update!

We’re certain some of the things we’ve shared with you today will change, but what won’t change is our team’s commitment to giving Wildgate—and this community—our full hearts. We look forward to sharing more dev updates in the near future (as well as adding more cool things to our roadmap), and we promise to keep the comms line open.

As always, thanks for crewing up with us. We’ll see you in the Reach. 

 

-- The Moonshot Dev Team