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A sloppy Vampire Survivors clone that apes Don’t Starve’s art style

4K View2023-12-16

Wild Legion

7.7

World War IITacticalCold WarVampireDarkArcheryTower DefenseAction Roguelike

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SHOULD I PLAY WILD LEGION?

In its current demo form, you’re safe passing on this one. Wild Legion is yet another Vampire Survivors clone, but it fails to capture a lot of elements that make this type of game actually click so strongly with players. On top of that, the best part of the game—its stylish visuals—appears to be lifted wholesale from Don’t Starve.

PLAY IT FOR YOURSELF

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TIME PLAYED

I spent around an hour with the Wild Legion demo. I wasn’t able to survive a full run through the game, but I got pretty deep into multiple attempts.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT WILD LEGION?

• The bold art. Wild Legion boasts what appear to be hand-drawn models for both the player characters and the enemies. Thick, dark lines help them stand out from the bland environment. The characters look cool and have a lot of style; they’re by far the most memorable part of the game as it stands, even if the inspiration from Don’t Starve is very clear and heavy.

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT IN WILD LEGION?

• The bold art. Did I say inspiration from Don’t Starve? It seems like it might go beyond just being inspired. Some Reddit users have pointed out character designs that seem to be directly copied with light edits made. I’m far from an expert on game art, so I’m not comfortable accusing anyone of stolen assets. But you can take a look and decide for yourself if this is just inspiration or something more insidious.

• Mushy gameplay. For as simple as the Vampire Survivors formula is, I don’t think that game gets enough credit for how much love went into making sure every single second feels tightly designed. Compare ten minutes in Vampire Survivors to ten minutes with Wild Legion, and you’ll see what I mean. My character didn’t feel like he had any weight, enemies seemed to bounce around the screen at random, and late game devolved into chaos—not the good kind of chaos where thousand of bad guys are being taken out by an array of overpowered weapons, but the bad kind where I simply couldn’t even tell what was happening on screen.

• Undercooked tower defense elements. Wild Legion’s biggest change from Vampire Survivors is the addition of crafting. By cutting down trees, I was able to build towers that could then protect the teleporter at the center of the map. It’s an interesting idea that has some potential, but I found it hard to tell whether my towers were helping me much, or when enemies were actually attacking them. The game desperately needs to give players more feedback.

• Tiny map. The actual playing area in Wild Legion is extremely small. This meant that unlike in other Vampire Survivors-style games, there weren’t secrets to uncover by exploring, and I felt like I had seen basically everything the game had to offer by the time I was fifteen minutes into my first run.

PLATFORM TESTED

PC.

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO PLAY ON THE CLOUD?

Unfortunately, playing Wild Legion on the cloud feels even worse than playing it normally, if you can believe it. There’s a slight but noticeable delay for changing the characters direction that makes this particular type of game a lot harder. More importantly, the game’s resolution and in-game text seemingly haven’t been optimized for smaller screens, so trying to make out your upgrade choices upon leveling up requires squinting at a blurry block of text.