Summary
- Wild Bastards, the spiritual successor to Void Bastards, is coming to Xbox Series X|S later this year.
- Learn how to manage dynamic outlaw relationships in Blue Manchu’s latest adventure.
- Find out why a simple Can of Beans is one of the most powerful items in the game.
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.
