My journey with Wayfinder has been an interesting one, to say the least. From its original incarnation as an online-only MMO-lite, where players could experience sprawling open world and co-op adventures, to its rebirth as a large-scale, multiplayer-optional ARPG—the evolution into Wayfinder 1.0 has been nothing if not an arduous process.
The transition brought along significant changes to core mechanics, player interaction, and the overall vision of what Wayfinder would become. The game has shifted away from needing to be constantly connected, instead opening itself up to single-player progression with optional multiplayer aspects. This shift has made the experience much more accessible and personal, while still leaving space for those moments when teamwork shines.
In Wayfinder, the core ideas behind the MMO experience are still here: cooperative gameplay, a large explorable open world, dynamic battles, and team archetype synergies. But it’s more of an invitation than a requirement now, focusing more on letting players stomp their way through the entirety of the content solo if that’s what they want to do. In Wayfinder you will step into the roles of one of eight resurrected heroes known as Wayfinders, each on a mission to push back the creeping darkness known as the Gloom.
No Room for Gloom
The story’s opening sets the tone beautifully, introducing players to Omen, the beacon keeper, whose solemn task is to guide and empower you to repel the Gloom. Before too long the story has you venturing across the overworld, dispersing Gloom Tears, diving into the Gloom itself to uncover the mysteries of this darkness and finding a way to put a stop to it entirely.
Recovering memories for each character will let you delve into the pasts of the Wayfinders themselves and I like that the narrative is woven in a way that lets players uncover not only the broader struggle of Skylight, the beacon and the Gloom, but also the individual stories. As you progress, Omen’s guidance serves as a constant reminder of the urgency to defeat the Gloom, urging you to find a path through the chaos.
The game gradually introduces a colorful cast of characters, all while offering opportunities to unlock each Wayfinder, usually soon after progressing through the major story arc. One thing you’ll end up doing a lot of is returning to Omen as part of turning in your quests, which sometimes feels unnecessary since Omen can speak with you anywhere throughout the world with a telepathic connection. There are some minor quality of life missteps that hold back the ease of access, such as displaying quests markers on fast travel points, and automatically selecting yes when you're attempting to fast travel instead of defaulting to no as it currently does. These are mild inconveniences, but noticeable when you're daisy-chaining quests.
In addition to the main quest, you'll pick up side quests throughout your journey, most of which will have you diving back into the Gloom to complete them. The expeditions will always have a similar feel to them, though you may find you're facing different maps, enemies, and you may even find new events awaiting you when you return.
For the most part the story is a satisfying journey of discovery as you work through the roster and grow attached to each unique hero, all of which are well voiced, with thematic and emotional performances. There are also cutscenes that will explore your journey cinematically, and you can rewatch those if you happen to miss something which is a nice touch that I took advantage of.
In terms of characters, each Wayfinder has a distinct identity, with their own abilities and strengths. Summoning a new character through Omen initially requires their summoning crest, and each hero starts with a specific weapon that complements their skills. The real fun comes from mixing and matching these heroes with different weapons, adding a refreshing layer of versatility to the combat system. The best part about the weapon system now, is that you can find everything from cosmetics to rare weapons in chests, which makes drops far more fun than before.
The classic MMO roles are apparent—tank, DPS, healer—and even though the game is fully playable solo, the archetypes are thoughtfully implemented, making it feasible to manage most encounters as long as your gear and echoes are up to the required gear score. Boss fights are where you’ll find most of the challenge. These battles often require knowing your opponent more than knowing your character. Out of the entire roster I personally found Wingrave and Venomess the most approachable and easiest to faceroll content with, largely due to their healing skills that kept me alive without much hassle.
Combat in Wayfinder is both familiar and approachable. Though the class-based teamwork aspects may suggest a deep strategy game, it’s often more reminiscent of a straightforward hack-and-slash experience save for a few boss encounters which act more like a puzzle than a fight, such as the Bloodspawn or the story battle against The First. Once you understand their attack patterns, they become far easier to handle. The game allows you to shift the difficulty by augmenting your Gloomsphere expeditions with imbuements that will add Mutators that make these encounters more difficult but reward you handsomely with upgrade materials and more experience.
Hack and Slash - Or Shoot Too
Each Wayfinder has a unique weapon, but I found myself favoring a couple of weapons that fit my play style best and rarely felt the need to switch once I found the right rhythm. Once you find the weapon that fits your style best, there isn’t much needs to flip around to alternative weaponry. In fact, there are times combat can feel a little stale as you don’t unlock new attack combinations or abilities to your Wayfinder as you progress. You’ll notice some small differences between weapon swaps, but ultimately if you choose a character and stick with them, you won’t get much variety outside of combat strength through progression.
Reaching the max level of 30 with all characters may take a bit of work, but there are a lot of options to advance, especially if you’re willing to dive into side quests, Gloom Tears, and participate in hunts and expeditions that utilize imbuements that increase your experience gain. All these activities also make it enjoyable to jump in with friends by searching for a party to experience it as multiplayer content.
The game’s progression mechanics are simple in some ways, and complex in others. Wayfinders conform to different archetypes and as you level up the corresponding archetype you’ll earn talent points that enhance your capabilities. Each Wayfinder’s talent tree offers a range of upgrades that sometimes overlap, which makes it somewhat simple to navigate without having to delve too deep into each skill tree to level up your Wayfinder. You can open new echo slots, go for a trifecta for a multiplication bonus for stats, or increase the baseline echo slots you have access to, all of which adds an additional layer of customization.
Each Wayfinder can also get bonuses from their costume choice. As you unlock new styles, some of them have stats on them, and slotting them will give you a stat percentage increase. You'll also have Affinity bonuses, which are three distinct gear bonuses, each with their own perks. For Affinity, you really don't have to think too hard on it, you can just upgrade your favorite character's affinity as you go, marking yet another avenue to increase you overall power score.
What's That Echo?
Echoes themselves are somewhat of a sticking point for progression. Echoes are gear-like items that slot into specific slots either on your character or on your artifacts and provide stat boosts, or in rare circumstances, ability augments. While the concept is straightforward, the execution often feels overly complex, and unwieldly to manage, especially when each Wayfinder needs to go through the rigmarole of getting setup and managing each of those echoes as you progress. The echo system is hampered by so many pieces that jumble together, making it far more difficult than it needs to be.
For example, echo slots have multiple slot types: Attack, Cross, Balance, Rush, and Guard. Your character and artifacts also have capacity limits, which means you can’t slot an echo that has a high capacity if the gear you have can’t hold it. Then you have rarity to throw into the mix, which could push certain echoes with a low capacity above higher capacity echoes, but unless you’re really paying attention to what your character focus is, you could easily miss pertinent stat boosts.
Echoes are plentiful, and while it’s easy to accumulate them, managing them can become an exercise in tedium. Inventory space quickly fills up, forcing you to dismantle echoes to free up capacity if you want to keep your selection of important echoes to a minimum. It’s one of the few places where the game’s design seems to stumble, creating friction in what should be a smooth process of character enhancement. The idea of having rarity tiers and slot-specific restrictions, on top of echo capacity requirements, feels like an unnecessarily complicated system that could use some simplification.
There are other places that Wayfinder feels MMO-like, like their player housing and the Reward Tower. Early on you are introduced to your apartment. Throughout your journey you’ll find furniture, gain pets, and most importantly gain Artifacts. Artifacts will actually give you stat bonuses, but only after you place them in your home and access them on your character. If you’ve been busy defeating monsters in the Gloom all day, some interior decorating can surely be a way to unwind.
Then you have the Reward Tower where you'll earn keys as you level up your characters. The keys can then be used to unlock special cosmetic items, imbuements, and even new color schemes for your characters. The Reward Tower is what the Season Pass feels like it was meant to be, and I don't know if we can expect the tower to change at all, but it's a nice to have a way to unlock new things for a desired character, even if you'll eventually have to unlock every slot on all tower floors to get the final reward.
There’s also crafting for consumables, like damage boosts, and relic crafting as well. You’ll also need to take note of the materials you’ll need to rank up your weapons, items, and heroes if you want to continue getting stronger. Character and weapon crafting before the single-player shift seemed a lot more difficult. I recall there were guides on where to find certain materials to unlock a character, or craft a new weapon, and the drops were heavily RNG. While there are items you'll need to achieve an increase in character or weapon rank, it doesn't feel as difficult to obtain what's necessary, and the lack of grind there is a very good thing in comparison to the nature of obtaining materials before.
Wayfinder has made significant strides from the online-only Wayfinder game I played when it launched into Early Access in August of 2023. The overhaul to a single-player game with optional multiplayer still has an echo of the MMO design it once aspired to be. The expansive world, character archetypes and end game loop are all remnants of what was, and yet Airship Syndicate has managed to twist the formula just enough to make it worthwhile for solo and co-op RPG players. While some systems may be as dense as the Gloom itself, Wayfinder ultimately lights the way to an enjoyable and rewarding adventure.
