STEPARU News, Reviews, Previews & Information for Foreign Games, wolfknights.

wolfknights

STEPARU News, Reviews, Previews & Information for Foreign Games

IMCGAMES had a surprised closed beta test or early playable build for their upcoming team-based PvP game WolfKnights Online. The game was actually playable globally and everyone was able to register despite the official notice stating that the game was only available for Japan, Europe and South Korea. I've always been curious about this game since its early debut so I took some time off to try out the game and see how it was.

Playable Characters and Customization - A Good Amount of Characters

WolfKnights offered a good amount of playable characters during the first closed beta though a few of them were gender-locked. A total of ten playable classes starting with Fighter, Fire Mage, Templar, Musketeer, Gladiator, Defender, Blood Mage, Female Ice Mage, Female Assassin, and a Male Warlock. Customization was a bit limited to presets and no crazy face or body sliders around.

Graphics - Pretty and Good!

One of the shining aspects of WolfKnights Online is the graphics looking very smooth, detailed, and nice. The skill effects also look good in terms of not over exaggerating rainbow mode special effects or too simple to not notice. The game also has a real-time day and night transition system for both the lobby town and PvP areas.

Gameplay - Combat Controls!

Honestly, I wasn't too fond of the combat at first, but after playing the game for more than a day, it slowly started to grow on me. I won't lie, I've been spoiled by action combat games over the past few years. Gameplay is actually quite simple and very easy to pick up that the Foreigners participating in the beta had an easy time playing the game even with the incomplete English translations. Depending on the class you're playing, some skills and spells are "skill-shot" based or cast "AoE" on floor type. While other classes will have auto targeting skills like the melee leap attack towards the target or cast single target type spell or skill. Movement is done with the WASD controls with no running feature. Players can auto attack a player if they ctrl+left click on them or hold down the spacebar key. I'm hoping for an upgrade in combat and movement speed on the final release of the game. The game speed was decent during the 3v3 arena, but felt a bit slow during the Sanctum War 18 player PvP matches. There was a noticeable lag playing from overseas where my skill shots went off after some delay, but not so bad that it ruined all the fun or I've grown big tolerance and adjusted to the lag from playing so many games from across the globe.

Sanctum War - Team PvPvPvE

The WolfKnights development team strayed away from the original concept of the game and veered towards a team-based PvP objective concept. Introducing the new Sanctum War mode where 18 players are split up into three different teams. Depending on how well your team plays together matches may end as early as the first fifteen minutes of the game or last for an hour long. The main objective in Sanctum War is to control all the points of the map. It sounds easy, but when you're up against two teams, it's quite a challenge. Each team spawns in fixed location which acts as a Home Base, here, players are able to ugprade their weapons, armors, accessories, and buy potions using the money acquired from killing monsters or players in the area. The game doesn't let you attack players right away, but instead, lets you farm monsters and mini bosses. Even if you wanted to gank early, you won't be able to because you'll lose out on a lot of EXP and money earned from clearing out the monsters outside of your base. Once you've cleared your base, you can move on to the next area by breaking the barricade. Killing the boss in the next area will grant your team that node. If another team wants to capture your node, they will have to go about it another way by channeling the altars on that node without being interrupted. There are a total of four nodes on the map and capturing it all will grant that team instant win! I've actually posted a full gameplay match below so check it out for more details.

Conclusion - Could Be Better!

The first beta was good enough that I could play the game for hours and not get bored. The queue times were rather slow during the beta and a lot of people ran into client related issues, updating problems, bugs, trouble logging, and random stuff during the first test. Actually, the CBT was a bit unexpected and I was a bit surprised that the game had gone into beta out of no where. I actually met some of the developers of the game in town and we played a couple matches here and there. They were really kind and helpful especially towards the Foreigners playing the beta. I'm no developer, but WolfKnights still has a long way to go in terms of improvement. IMCGAMES is probably pouring most of their resources in Tree of Savior Online at the moment for pushing into OBT this year or early next year, so the WolfKnights team is smaller. If you've been following me for some time, then you should be aware that I enjoy playing games with a lot of PvP content. WolfKnights is mostly focused on PvP and even if you don't have the time to play the lengthy sessions of Sanctum War, you're able to login and play some quick Arena matches in town as seen in the previous videos above. I do hope they add more PvP content, but its starting to sound like Guild Wars? I'll probably be checking out the beta again and make some more PvP videos in the next test. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that the combat pace will be a bit faster the 2nd time around or an upgrade in action combat. I'm sure there are a lot of people who prefer this style of combat, but after playing so many action combat games it's hard to go back. I'm not even sure if this was even CBT to begin with since it was more like an early test build of the game. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed the short review and see you on my next gaming adventures!

Итог: STEPARU News, Reviews, Previews & Information for Foreign Games IMCGAMES had a surprised closed beta test or early playable build for their upcoming team-based PvP game WolfKnights