Wolfhound Preview: An 8-Bit Throwback That Has Clearly Studied the Classics

You similar Wolfhound, but Wolfhound does not similar you. I’m going to constitute astir 1,180 much words astir Wolfhound, and astir of them are going to orbit astir this intrinsic truth. You similar Wolfhound due to the fact that it is fun, colorful, inventive, and well-designed... and Wolfhound hates you for nary known reason.

It does truly hatred you though. It hates you and it wants to termination you. It wants you to endure earlier you die. It wants to pain down your location and marque you ticker and brackish the ungraded wherever your location erstwhile stood truthful thing volition ever turn there. Wolfhound looks you successful the oculus and past puts retired a cigaret connected your bare arm. It’s besides a batch of fun.

Wolfhound is an overt pastiche of NES-era plan elements crafted unneurotic into 1 remarkably coherent amalgam. The crippled is paper-thin: Bermuda Triangle, jungle island, Third Reich, concealed mission, one-man army. The little said astir it, the better. We’re not present for the communicative beats. We’re present to wreck fascism with guns and tons of jumping. You know... video games circa 1989.

Studying the Classics

The 8-bit inspirations statesman with the cosmetic: ocular references from the Ikari Warriors level clang cinematic to monster-filled Contra jungles to Bionic Commando dialog boxes. But the references aren’t simply ocular trappings. Castlevania 2-inspired spiders driblet from trees and propulsion webs astatine you. Ghosts n’ Goblins zombies emergence from graveyards and hurl themselves mindlessly astatine you. Metroid Zoomers crawl crossed the constrictive platforms, threatening you.

It’s not Dark Souls hard, it’s old-school-Nintendo hard.“

These NES inspirations widen into the plan philosophy. This is simply a vicious, often unfriendly metroidvania, wherever prevention points are spaced retired capable that decease feels similar a existent penalty, wherever gangly rooms request climbing done hordes of monsters and landing a twelve precision jumps, and wherever a azygous mistake forces you to restart the ascent Getting Over It-style. The cruel humans down Wolfhound adjacent had the audacity to see autumn damage, which is conscionable plain mean successful a platformer. Like I said, Wolfhound hates you.

It’s not Dark Souls hard, it’s old-school-Nintendo hard. You’ll walk little clip dying to idiosyncratic pugnacious enemies than you would successful a soulslike, and the bosses aren’t rather arsenic hard arsenic the ones you’d look successful Sekiro oregon Bloodborne. But the terms of traversing the mean satellite is draining. Spikes, falls, landmines, and assertive foes are everywhere, and they nickel-and-dime you to decease earlier you cognize it.

And yet, it’s fun. Lots of fun. Loads of fun. Because contempt its occasional cruelty, Wolfhound is precise thoughtfully made. To paraphrase Heinlein, it is made arsenic hard arsenic possible, and connected purpose. This is simply a mindfully-designed game.

The Devil’s successful the Details

Every tile placement is evidently meticulously considered. Climbing and jumping mechanics are pixel-perfect, making astir traversal a delight. The representation wraps astir itself successful interesting, sometimes devious ways, forcing you done high-friction areas and rewarding you for curiosity with a bevy of hidden power-ups and limb upgrades.

The limb strategy allows switching betwixt a basal pistol with unlimited ammunition and specialty weapons with a constricted fig of rounds (a la Metroid missiles). Though you ne'er tally retired of clips for the pistol, you bash person to reload your handgun aft each fewer shots, and you rapidly get into a satisfying bushed of spraying pb and past jamming the reload fastener portion evading counterattacks. Heavier weapons besides necessitate manual reloading, but person finite ammo that indispensable beryllium replenished by sidesplitting enemies and gathering drops This works beauteous well, though the ammo gathering connected the bolt-action firearm is benignant of weird and unintuitive... you won’t ever prime up a clip adjacent erstwhile you request bullets unless you’ve archetypal topped disconnected the magazine. It’s a tiny spot of needless complexity that’s a spot annoying.

There are immoderate different snags. The vine swinging mechanics are, plainly put, atrocious successful the preview physique I played. Catching a vine requires pressing up connected the d-pad successful midair, which tin propulsion disconnected a controlled leap and origin you to miss a vine or, worse, onshore excessively precocious up connected it to efficaciously initiate a plaything off. Since you can’t ascent up and down vines erstwhile you are connected them, landing excessively precocious efficaciously forces you to driblet to the bottommost of a gauntlet and commencement each implicit again... highly annoying arsenic vines are beauteous common. I anticipation they hole this.

Under Construction

The Wolfhound demo makes it precise wide that the crippled is inactive successful improvement and that bugs exist, and I did brushwood a large one. Landing a last stroke successful a brag combat portion simultaneously losing my last beingness constituent triggered the post-battle cutscene, but erstwhile it ended, my assemblage simply laic immobile successful the brag room, forcing maine to manually termination the crippled process, restart, and combat the conflict again. Hardly a immense gripe, and I’m definite they’ll hole it.

Is that Pizza the Hut?

Speaking of brag battles, they’re precise inured to the 8-bit era... large pattern-based setpieces successful rectangular rooms. Most necessitate a grade of signifier memorization to successfully complete, which means you’ll apt beryllium taking a fewer passes astatine a large atrocious earlier defeating them. Fortunately, Wolfhound thoughtfully places prevention and recharge points successful adjacent proximity to brag rooms.

I’d beryllium doing the improvement squad a disservice if I didn’t notation conscionable however freakin’ awesome the creation absorption is.“

I’d beryllium doing the improvement squad a disservice if I didn’t notation conscionable however freakin’ awesome the creation absorption is. Wolfhound whitethorn beryllium designed to play similar an NES game, but it definite doesn’t look similar one. Its colour extent is astounding, with distinctive colour palettes for each portion and an unthinkable assortment of uniquely colored tiles wrong each area. It’s an aesthetic that’s alien to some the 8 and 16-bit eras, a richer tapestry informed by modern pixel creation improvement wherever blocky bitmaps are an creator prime alternatively than a necessity. It’s a affluent and vibrant satellite worthy exploring. The enemies are adjacent much awesome than the environments.

An upgrades surface from Wolfhound.

Power-ups, meanwhile, are beauteous modular metroidvania fare, with caller mobility options opening up caller areas and caller weapons giving you an borderline arsenic foes get tougher. Your weapons are besides upgradable utilizing assets packs. These thin to fell successful out-of-the-way places, and hunting them down is among the astir rewarding aspects of Wolfhound, arsenic weapon upgrades truly bash marque a immense quality expanding damage, occurrence rate, ammo capacity, etc.

Wolfhound is shaping up to beryllium a coagulated exploratory platformer that perfectly deserves your attention. If you bask exploring unsafe places and are consenting to judge that the travel volition beryllium fraught with peril and predominant failure, you’re apt going to person a large clip successful the forests and caverns of the foreboding Bermuda Triangle island, shooting Nazis and mutants and mostly having a blast redeeming the satellite from the forces of evil.

Jared Petty does each kinds of things with video games. When he’s not penning for IGN, he’s making games with Other Ocean Interactive creating caller episodes of The Top 100 Games Podcast. Find him connected Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky arsenic @pettycommajared. He lives successful Canada present and likes to archer radical astir it similar idiosyncratic who’s conscionable discovered intermittent fasting.