Wayfinder, the free-to-play online action role-playing game from Darksiders: Genesis developer Airship Syndicate, has been reworked and re-announced as a paid single-player title following Warframe studio Digital Extremes’ decision to return publishing rights late last year.
Wayfinder was released in early access last August as an online fantasy action role-playing game with a free-to-play monetization model similar to Warframe. This initial release combines small dungeon crawling for up to three players with larger open areas accommodating 30-40 players.
However, after a difficult year – Wayfinder racked up thousands of negative reviews on Steam at launch while struggling with server issues, then faced uncertainty after Digital Extremes closed its publishing branch and returned the rights to Airship – it has now significant change.
The new version of Airship, titled Wayfinder Echoes, is a paid version with no monetization and no online requirements. That’s because it’s reimagined as a single-player game, albeit one that supports optional peer-to-peer co-op play for three players. “We realize this is a big change,” the studio wrote in its announcement post, “but necessary to ensure the game lives on forever.”
Airship claims to have “touched every major system” for the Wayfinder re-release, and these changes include “all weapons become randomized drops with different slots, armor now has stats and is collectible, thousands of cosmetic and housing items available to collect, the removal of the grind , to get new characters, relaxed character awakening requirements, increased housing item limits, adding four difficulty choices, incorporating traditional role-playing talents into your progression, and much more.”
Echoes will replace the previous version of Wayfinder when it goes live on May 31 for all existing Steam players, adding a new Wayfinder (Grendel), new Hunts, and a new Overlands zone. It will then return to the store as an Early Access title on June 11th, costing $24.99 USD – though that price is expected to increase with its 1.0 release on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation this “fall.” As for the current PlayStation Early Access version, it will move to Wayfinder Echoes sometime this summer, albeit only for PS5 – the PS4 version is being discontinued, but there is a free upgrade to the PS5 edition for players who can they use it.
“We know the road here has not been easy and the game has had a rocky past,” Airship continued. “We also know that it wasn’t the original game that we envisioned or that our fans picked up on.” When faced with the reality of where we are, we saw our options as shutting down the game completely like other online games have done before or this major point and releasing the Echoes update… We have ideas for additional characters and new content and we intend to do so if players demand it and Wayfinder finds a new audience.”
Airship’s announcement was met with a mixture of understanding and disappointment on the Wayfinder subreddit. There’s disappointment that the originally promised paid game no longer exists (last year’s Early Access version required players to purchase a Founder’s Pack ranging from $19.99 to $149.99), but the community also seems empathetic to Airship’s plight following the loss of Digital Extremes as publisher.
However, the response on Steam right now is a little less forgiving. 136 negative reviews have been posted on Wayfinder’s Steam page since Echoes’ announcement versus 39 positive reviews, resulting in a Mostly Negative recent rating. Airship will be hoping to win over those players and bring the results back into the blue once Echoes launches on May 31st.
