\u201cWhat\u2019s a \u2018Gong Farmer\u2019?\u201d I asked Dennis Br\u00e4nnvall, the creative director of Star Wars: Battlefront<\/em> and co-founder of Wayfinder Studios. We were chatting as I started playing Wayfinder\u2019s upcoming co-op action RPG Wyldheart<\/em>. One of the first decisions the game presents you is a riff on a classic: selecting your character\u2019s very, very humble background.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the person in charge of the latrines,\u201d he said delicately, chuckling a little bit.<\/p>\n Thus, Arlo Mossgrave (a randomly rolled name) was born, a Hobbit-like Mossling peasant who spent his nights shoveling other people\u2019s poop in a small village with his trusty pitchfork. Within moments of pressing the start button, Wyldheart <\/em>telegraphs that you are the lowest of the low using Middle English terminology like \u201cScullion,\u201d \u201cDrover,\u201d and my beloved \u201cGong Farmer.\u201d (I\u2019ll admit I was also tempted by \u201cRat Catcher,\u201d \u201cGrave Robber,\u201d and \u201cDrunk.\u201d) So often in RPGs like this, backgrounds feel painfully generic, so rather than roleplay, we tend to go for optimization instead and wind up googling \u201cwyldheart best character background.\u201d Something about this novel approach got my role-playing gears spinning instead. Very quickly, Arlo came to life in my mind in the same way that all my Dungeons & Dragons <\/em>characters do.<\/p>\n Br\u00e4nnvall explained that while choices like ancestry and background don\u2019t have much of a long-term impact on gameplay, they do determine your starting gear and skill trees.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re a Baker, you might get a starting point in cooking, for example,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Exiled Noble starts with an ornate sword and a point in swordplay.\u201d The Drunk\u2019s broken bottle is a surprisingly effective one-handed starting weapon. Nearby, Wayfinder CEO and co-founder Fia Tjernberg commented that she liked the Grave Robber\u2019s two-handed shovel the best.<\/p>\n Arlo woke up in a dark dungeon dripping with green slime clusters \u2014 he was truly in deep shit this time. Thankfully, he arrived with a torch (Gong Farmers work at night!). I was able to light it on a nearby sconce just by walking up to it, grateful I didn\u2019t have to press any buttons to do so. \u201cIf you’re playing with another friend, you can light each other’s torches and stuff like that,\u201d Tjernberg said.<\/p>\n Inside every sludge pile I found was the decaying remains of dozens or perhaps hundreds of previous peasants who\u2019d also been tossed in here. Each had several pieces of gear to swap out, offering me a way to test out various kinds of weapons and playstyles. I lucked out and found a mace in the very first pile, something the devs said was a top-tier early weapon. Within minutes, Arlo was decked out in a robe and feathered cap with a mix of heavy and light weapons.<\/p>\n The dungeon had a mix of undead and small green ooze monsters, which made me realize that different weapons delivered different damage types. \u201cThe zombies are surprisingly good at taking crushing damage,\u201d Br\u00e4nnvall said. \u201cSo there’s a bit of discovery in like, \u2018What should I use against what enemy?\u2019\u201d Slash and pierce attacks went right through the ooze, dealing less damage, so the mace came in really handy for smashing them. Every weapon has limited durability as well, so I imagine that players will have to frequently swap between weapons when playing for more than one reason.<\/p>\n Combat feels reminiscent of games like Fable<\/em> or Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning<\/em> where you\u2019re swapping between weapons on the fly, managing your stamina as you attack, block, and dodge around enemies. In one encounter, I came up against a slime, a cultist mage, and her skeleton guard with a sword and shield. The mage had an area-of-effect poison cloud spell and teleported around the battlefield, but I focused all of my attacks on her, dodging out of the way whenever she cast her spell. (Br\u00e4nnvall noted that a lot of players die in this encounter by targeting one of the other two first.) Kicking at the skeleton helped to break its shielded guard stance.<\/p>\n But just before she died, the cultist shrieked, and another skeleton came running in. Wyldheart<\/em> features a noise mechanic where enemies can call for reinforcements in this way. So if you spend your time in dungeons bumbling around and making a lot of noise, you\u2019re likely to attract attention. In some cases, you can barricade doors behind you.<\/p>\n Speaking of doors: I almost fell out of my seat in surprise when a skeleton swung an axe at me as soon as I opened a random door. Later, I encountered more enemies, a few puzzles that felt just hard enough, and eventually found my way to the dungeon\u2019s final boss: a huge slime monster that hurled acid blasts, flanked by a handful of small slimes. I whimpered a bit \u2014 one of my favorite D&D characters ever, an artificer named Khatska who wielded a magical spear, died a few years back after she was dissolved in a slime.<\/p>\n Br\u00e4nnvall was sympathetic when I mentioned it and offered me a tip to ease my trauma: light the braziers lining the outer edges of the room and hurl them at the boss for major damage. Though Arlo did die once on account of standing in the ooze\u2019s body too long smacking it with my mace, I returned to throw another brazier and was able to exit the dungeon out into the vibrant fallen Kingdom of Caerwyn.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wyldheart<\/em> is a crossplay co-op RPG built for up to four players at a time, but each campaign can support a much larger group. Up to 20 characters can exist within a single shared world, letting friends drop in and out between sessions without derailing the adventure. It\u2019s a structure designed around a familiar truth: the real final boss of any RPG isn\u2019t the dungeon \u2014 it\u2019s scheduling. Even from a storytelling perspective, the game is designed to support this glaring truth about playing RPGs with your friends. XP is shared amongst the entire group.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s a curse from the Fey world and a mist that’s creeping into all the corners of the land,\u201d Br\u00e4nnvall explained. \u201cYou need to find up to seven relics and bring them to the main hub of the town in the middle of the land to activate the wards. So it’s cause for celebration when you find one during a session, but you can still play it async if you want.\u201d Even if a member of your adventuring group misses out on the story mission to acquire a relic, there are still six more \u2014 so they\u2019re really not missing out on all that much. But there\u2019s also so much to do in the larger world exploring the overworld map that you can always come back to story missions later.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is very much an homage to old-school RPGs like Dungeon Crawl Classics,\u201d Br\u00e4nnvall said.<\/p>\n Wyldheart<\/em> is structured as a series of \u201cbite-sized\u201d campaigns meant to take about 10-15 hours. The 1.0 version of the game will have four campaigns. The first focuses on finding these seven relics to activate the wards, but it seems like most or all of the campaign\u2019s 250 overworld hexes \u2014 which are handcrafted \u2014 has something to investigate. \u201cThis is where the game turns into a good-ole RPG hex crawl \u2026 almost like a board game,\u201d Br\u00e4nnvall said.<\/p>\n We had just enough time to reach the game\u2019s first village and talk to a couple of NPCs who offered some commentary and complaints that hinted at potential questlines. Br\u00e4nnvall explained that the game features weather systems and a day\/night cycle, both of which have an impact on NPC schedules. But everyone has their own concerns and goals that help to shape Wyldheart<\/em>\u2019s overall experience.<\/p>\n One of the more striking things about Wyldheart<\/em> is its tone. Br\u00e4nnvall said while it\u2019s not quite like Darkest Dungeon<\/em>, the team has aimed for a sort of \u201cgallows humor\u201d that is dark and grim but also ironic and, at times, pretty silly. At one point in the dungeon, you have to fill a skull cup up with acid to then pour it somewhere else. Technically, you can drink it instead. Similarly, in addition to potions for healing, there are also various concoctions meant to be thrown at enemies. Yet there\u2019s nothing stopping you from drinking that either \u2014 or throwing it at your friends for the laughs.<\/p>\n I commented to Br\u00e4nnvall that Wyldheart<\/em> feels a lot like co-op Fable<\/em>, which he agreed with. I hesitated before adding that it\u2019s a \u201cfriendslop\u201d game I can\u2019t wait to play with my D&D crew. He laughed and admitted internally they\u2019ve bandied that term about a great deal. \u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about this a few times!\u201d he said. \u201cIs it insulting to call an RPG friendslop?\u201d<\/p>\n Br\u00e4nnvall likened sessions of Wyldheart<\/em> to playing D&D one-shots. Players might try to get through it in a single evening, maybe two, and if one player or everybody dies, they can always just roll up a brand-new Gong Farmer and give it another go.<\/p>\n Wayfinder Studios \u2014 an indie studio with only 10 developers \u2014 expects to launch Wyldheart in early access sometime later this year.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"wyldheart](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/03_combat_chatter.png?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2\")
\n <\/picture>![\"wyldheart](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/13_boss4k.png?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2\")
\n <\/picture>\n The bigger picture and world
\n <\/h2>\n![\"wyldheart](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/08_overworldmap4k.png?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2\")
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