Wild Hearts. New hunt begins

Wild Hearts is an action adventure game developed by ‘Koei Tecmo Games‘ and published by ‘electronic Arts‘. Wild Hearts is said to be coming out the 16th of February 2023 on Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and pc. A gaming concept like this is easy to get right. So much potential. X35 Earthwalker will see if it is being done right. Let’s take a look.

The story of Wild Hearts is like legend story. There’s these massive animals or beasts, whatever you want to call them, and they are called Kemono. Kemono, not kimono. Get it right. The kemono got angry or something. They went on a rampage such a long time ago that no one remembers why. We already know the twist for this game. You made it too obvious developers. Back to the story. The Kemono rampaged through Azuma, which we hear was doing really well before the rampage. That’s it.

Well that isn’t exactly it. The kemono are unstoppable. No one could beat them. Then one day a hunter showed up. This hunter was clearly a whole cut above everyone else. This hunter had effective weapons and ancient technology. This technology is called Karakuri… not to be mistaken with the Yu-Gi-Oh! monster arch type called Karakuri. So we can see all the references here. This one hunter “could turn the tide of battle.” So yeah, here’s where the player comes into play. You will also use ancient tech to hunt and take down the kemono.   

Now off course if you are developing a monster hunting game then the only real competitor is Monster under. So how is this different? Well Wild Hearts is more focused on the technology. We don’t see this was a huge difference yet but hopefully it will be more clear when we see more of Wild Hearts. In terms of the technology being a big deal, it has to be clear in the gameplay and mechanics. We like the vehicle method of transportation. That circular vehicle reminds us of Jack Atlas’ duel runner in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds. We hope to see more big things and signs of technology being the dominant factor and in the hunting and fights against the kemono. They got to get this right.

We checked out some Wild Hearts gameplay and it’s mostly what we expected. The karakuri can take on multiple forms or should we say be shaped into those forms. Karakuri can be used to set traps. The karakuri is also for building, resource gathering and off course training. So yeah, use both the karakuri and your weapons (don’t forget about those) to face the kemono. Now we hope they do the battles with these creatures right. They can’t be a here’s their level, go in, beat them and cross it off your list. These beasts need to live up to their fame. Be powerful, massive and an actual challenge. 

Overall Wild Hearts seems like a good game but we want it to be much better. The potential is there. The graphics are looking good and the locations are looking nice with variety. The locations and environments matters in a hunt. We do hope to see improvements to the game as a whole. The kemono need to have variety and more kemono need to show up and bring variety instead of the predictable lot. The developers ‘Koei Tecmo Games’ have done an alright job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will hope the potential of Wild Hearts is maximised. Now Wild Hearts may be the next big monster hunting game but it’s scale is far too small for… the ‘Earth Walk!’