Huge thanks to everyone who shared feedback and submitted bug reports during our last Community Preview Playtest; it's been so helpful!

Check out a TL:DR of our major changes since the last playtest below, and if you want to dig into all of the changes, you can find all the details further down the page!

• Balance changes to Mophs, Ion, and Sammo
  
• We’ve made the map larger and spread out the distance between the ships' initial spawn points
  
• Adjustments to weapons (e.g., Surefire, Sonic Boom) and equipment (e.g., Shield Wall) to bring them more in line with the others
  
• Several changes to player respawn mechanics, including a longer time before respawning and adding variable spawn points within a ship
  
• Some secure doors have been added to Scout, Privateer, and Hunter

“Ion felt a bit underpowered in the last playtest compared to other prospectors. With the defender buffs in this patch, we’re giving Ion a bit more room to flex his muscles.”

• Ion health up from 100 to 120
  
• Melee hits to destroy ship doors and windows reduced to 3 (from 5)

“Mophs ability to camouflage while in space made him too strong as a boarder. Countering boarding is generally about engaging them at range before they are on board, and Mophs made that difficult. We still want Mophs to be able to sneak and steal but want to introduce some counterplay.”

• Mophs will no longer Camouflage passively
  
• Instead, Mophs can now activate Camoflage for 10 seconds in any environment (shooting, interacting, and/or taking damage breaks the cloak)
  
• Camouflage now replaces Maghook for Mophs only, and can be activated using the same input key or button
  
• Increased Mophs movement speed bonus to 30% (up from 20%)

“We want Sammo to protect his ship, but Sammo would sometimes be waiting for you at a door when you opened it, which would lead to a rough end to your boarding attempt.”
The Quiet

• The Quiet range reduced from 30m to 20m
  
• Sammo can no longer detect enemies outside his ship
  

“In the previous playtest, the time needed to start and turn off overloading a Reactor was swapped. This issue has now been fixed.”

• Reduced the time to start overloading a Reactor to 1 s (was 3 s)
  
• Increased the time to turn off overloading a Reactor to 3 s (was 1 s)

“A static spawn point on ships is great to easily orient yourself, especially for new players, but it also allows enemies to predictably know where players will respawn. We are trying a variation here that gives defenders some advantages when respawning.”

• Increased the number of spawn points within a ship
  
• When players respawn, they are oriented toward locations where enemies commonly appear
  
• When teleporting home or respawning, a player spawns in a random point

“While the Hunter is a relatively easy ship to defend, the orientation of the Reactor made it easy for boarders to overload and camp from the rear door. We’ve adjusted the position to make it slightly harder for boarders.”

• Rotated the Reactor 180 degrees

“We were concerned that if the starting ships had secured doors, new players might get trapped outside their ships. During the previous playtest, we weren’t seeing this as an issue, so we’ve decided to add secure doors to all ships.”

• Added secure doors to the Privateer, Hunter, and Scout at the front or side of the ship
  
• In the tutorial, secure doors will automatically open for the player when holding the Artifact

“We’re tuning down some of the early ship-to-ship aggression. While we love some early aggression, we also want to give crews a chance to loot and upgrade their ships before entering into prolonged combat.”

• Reduced ship ammo to 50 (was 150)
  
• Players now salvage 5 ice and 5 fuel from a destroyed ship (was 10 ice / 10 fuel)

“We want boarding to be powerful, but more focused on objectives than just cleaning out the crew. This change gives boarders an objective that has more value than it did in the previous version.”

• Increased cooldown to 10 s (was 5 s)

“The Double Whammy was similar to the Drill Charge and Ion. It also dealt a large amount of damage to AI enemies. While we still want the Double Whammy to pack a punch, we’ve reduced some of its damage, and the weapon no longer breaks ship parts.”

• Increased ammo carried by 4
  
• No longer does damage to ship parts (e.g., windows, doors, etc.)
  
• Does half as much damage to AI enemies

“The area of effect damage was very strong against enemy crews. We’ve tuned down the damage.”

• Deals 35 damage to enemies hit in the center and 25 damage to enemies outside that area

“The Sonic Boom was a bit weak in the previous playtest, so we’ve given it a bit more power.”

• Projectiles grow to a maximum of 25% bigger
  
• Slightly increased the ranges where it can 2-shot and 3-shot an enemy
  
• Sonic Boom can no longer one-shot kill an enemy at any range

“The Surefire was a bit too powerful in the previous playtest, making it the go-to weapon. We’re tuning down its damage to bring it more in line with the other weapons.”

• Increased ammo clip size to 12 (was 10)
  
• Decreased projective damage to 20 (was 30)
  
• Increased the maximum spread to 1.25 (was 1)

“This buff is to offset many of the changes to boarding that make part of the game difficult. This tool needs to work, so we’re giving you a second charge.”

• Increased charges to 2 (was 1)

“There were some clarity issues with the Foam Can, making it hard to tell what damage it was doing and when. We made some adjustments to make it clear what happens when you use the Foam Can.”

• Removed damage over time
  
• Increase area of effect to match the visuals

“We found that some equipment was a bit too powerful in the previous playtest, making them the preferred pick. We’ve tuned down their power so they aren’t an immediate choice, but are still a viable option.”

• Reduced damage to 60 (was 80)

• Reduced duration to 0.7 s (was 1 s)

• Reduced the health of each hex to 50 (was 75)
  
• Increased size of each hex to 35 (was 30)
  
• Reduced charges to 1 (was 2)
  
• Known Issue: The in-game UI shows that the Shield Wall has 2 charges

“During the previous playtest, we received a lot of feedback around the POIs and loot. We want to make finding loot, including cannons, more predictable, especially during the early game. We’ve also removed the Low Loot modifier as it was frustrating being unable to find loot, then encountering a kitted-out enemy ship.”

• Increased the number of medium POIs potentially available to 8, 9, or 10 (was 0, 5, 8, or 10)
  
• Removed Epic Loot POIs
  
• Removed the Low Loot modifier
  
• Removed special loot tables from the following POIs: Battleship, Colony Base, Corrupt Reactor, AI Containment, Science Vessel, and StarDock
  
• Small POIs now always include a Quad or Scatter Cannon
  
• Updated the chance to obtain some basic devices within a loot table

“In the previous playtests, players would encounter enemy crews early in the match, sometimes before their first POI was completed. We’ve made the map bigger to reduce the occurrence of this happening.”

• Increased the size of the Typhon Reach by 500 m in all directions except height
  
• Increased the distance between ship spawn points
  
• Increased probe bonus distance for the Probe Sensor Hardpoint to +400 m (was +200 m)

“We’ve adjusted how long it takes for the Wildgate to open. The Fast Gate modifier was a bit too fast, limiting options for anyone not near the Artifact while it took slightly too long for the Artifact to be relevant in normal matches.”

• Decreased the time for the normal Wildgate to open to 23 - 25 min (was 30 min)
  
• Increased the time for Wildgate to open with the Fast Gate modifier to 15 min (was 12 min)

“Whittling an enemy down to low health didn’t feel impactful when they could take cover to regain health quickly. This change should make combat damage more meaningful while allowing a clever solo boarder to take on multiple defenders.”

• You now start regenerating health 8 s after taking damage (was 5 s)

“Boarders should be able to wreak havoc and deal a lot of damage, but we’re not sure they should be able to dominate the helm as much as they did. Increasing defenders’ invulnerability after spawning should give them a chance to counterattack and incentivize boarders to cause chaos elsewhere.”

• Previously, the amount of invulnerability you had when respawning depended on how many times you died in a row. Now, you always have 5 s of invulnerability when respawning

“The respawn time felt fast, so we’re increasing it slightly. We’ve also made some changes to when your camera switches from your revive orb to inside the ship, to make it clear when you can be revived.”

• Total respawn time was increased to 13 s (was 10 s)
  
• Changes were made to the flow within the respawn time. The sum of these changes is reflected in the total respawn time above
  
• Increased the respawn delay time to 12 s (was 8 s)
  
• Reduced time within the ship to 4 s (was 8 s)
  
• Reduced time until you had control of your character to 1 s (was 1.5 s)
  
• Reduced time within which you could revive an ally to 8 s (was 10 s)

“We want this ability to feel snappy, but at 0.375 seconds, it is pretty fast. This change will hopefully make countering thieves a little easier.”

• Increased time to teleport back to the ship to 0.5 s (was 0.375 s)

• Fixed an issue where Easy Anti-Cheat failed to initialize after a game crash
  
• Fixed an issue where special characters in the player name could cause performance issues
  
• Fixed an issue where players would sometimes spawn into objects when using an entry point to the Monolith after defeating Arkasor waves
  
• Fixed an issue where ships did not explode after all players left the game
  
• Fixed an issue where the Wildgate was not open by default when in the Firing Range
  
• Fixed an issue where the Grenades did not bounce properly
  
• Fixed an issue where the Thunderdash velocity was incorrectly doubled

Five crews. Twenty Prospectors. One Artifact. Unlimited Space Crimes!

Here’s what to expect when our Wildgate Community Preview playtest begins this week.

Our Community Preview playtest runs from May 9 - 12.

• START: Friday, May 9 at 9:00 AM PDT (May 9 at 6:00 PM CEST)
  
• END: Monday, May 12 at 5:00 PM PDT (May 13 at 2:00 AM CEST)

Servers will remain available and playable 24/7; however, since Wildgate is still a work-in-progress, you may encounter bugs, crashes, and other connectivity issues while playing.

(Playtest updates and/or service disruptions will be shared on Discord[discord.gg].)

To be eligible to join our playtest, you must first sign up! If you have already signed up, then you’re all set - you don’t need to sign up again.

Signing up is easy: Simply visit our Wildgate sign-up page[wildgate.gg], enter and verify your email address, then answer a few short questions. Once you've completed the sign-up process, you're all set!

The Community Preview playtest will be invite-only, and sign-ups will close May 8 at 8:00 AM PDT (May 8 at 5:00 PM CEST).

Participants in the April Community Preview playtest will automatically be invited to the upcoming playtest. Your key is still active, and you can join the playtest when it begins.

Selected participants will receive an invite via email on Thursday, May 8, starting at 9:00 AM PDT (May 8 at 6:00 PM CEST), along with instructions on how to claim a key through our playtest dashboard.

Participants may claim one (1) playtest key on their preferred platform.

Please note that receiving an invite email is only the first step! To be assigned a key, you will need to complete our registration process and select your platform. Since we have a limited number of keys, they will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. If keys are no longer available, the option will be grayed out.

Participants playing on Steam will be able to invite three (3) friends through the Steam client! They must have been friends with you on Steam for at least 30 days to be eligible to receive an invite. Please note: Friend Invites may be disabled during the playtest based on server capacity.

To invite friends, simply go to Wildgate Community Preview in your library. When this option is available, you’ll see a notification that you can grant your friends access to the playtest.

The Invites Remaining button will redirect you to the Gated Access Games on your account page (you can also access it here).

Open the dropdown button to access the Invite Friends button.

The pop-up window will show the friends you are eligible to invite. Select a name to invite your friend to the Wildgate playtest.

Your invited friends will receive a notification on Steam. Once they’ve accepted the invitation, they’ll be able to download and play in the Wildgate Community Preview playtest! The Steam Friend Invite system is still in beta, and there may be a delay before your friends receive the notification.

Q. When does the playtest start and end?
A. The playtest begins May 9 at 9:00 AM PDT and runs until May 12 at 5:00 PM PDT. Servers will be available during the entire playtest. For timezone assistance, click here[dateful.com].

Q. How do I sign up for the playtest?
A. You can sign up for the Community Preview playtest at http://wildgate.gg/playtest. If you have already signed up or participated in the April Community Preview, you won’t need to sign up again!

Q. Do I need to sign up if I played in the previous Community Preview playtest?
Nope! Everyone who participated in the April Community Preview will have access to the game and can play Wildgate when the playtest begins on May 9.

Q. When do sign-ups for the playtest end?
A. To be eligible to participate in the playtest, sign up at wildgate.gg/playtest before May 8 at 8:00 AM PDT.

Q. Does signing up guarantee access to the playtest?
A. No, signing up does not guarantee access to the playtest.

Q. When will playtest keys be distributed?
A. Keys will be distributed starting May 8 at 9:00 AM PDT.

Q. How will I be notified if I’m selected for the playtest?
If you signed up through http://wildgate.gg/playtest, you will receive an invite email sent from playtest@playwildgate.com. This invite will direct you back to our playtest dashboard hosted on FirstLook.gg.

Here, you will be asked to complete a quick registration process as well as select youur platform on which you wish to receive a playtest key. If keys are no longer available, it will be grayed out. After this process is finished, you will be provided with one (1) playtest key.

Q. How and where can I redeem my playtest key?
A. Click here[support-wildgate.dreamhaven.com] to learn how to redeem a playtest key. Once redeemed, you can begin downloading the Wildgate Community Preview client.

Q. Can I download the Wildgate Community Preview client?
A. Yes! Once you have claimed your key, you can download Wildgate. You will not be able to play the game until the Community Preview begins on May 9.

Q. Can I invite friends to join the playtest?
Yes! You can invite friends through Steam’s friend invite system.

Inviting Friends on Steam
We’re also offering friend invites through Steam’s beta program. All players who have Wildgate in their Steam library can invite three (3) Steam friends to play Wildgate. You must be Steam friends for at least 30 days to be eligible to invite them.

You can invite your friends in one of two ways: the Wildgate store page or on your account page under Gated Access Games. Simply click on the ‘Invite Friends’ button and select the user to invite.

Your friend will need to accept the invite from their Steam notifications. This friend invite system is currently in beta, and invitations could take some time (up to a couple of days) to arrive.

Q. What regions are supported during this playtest?
A. The Community Preview will be available in North America, South America, Europe, and APAC.

Q. What languages are supported during this playtest?
A. English, French, German, Italian, Castilian Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese will have both in-game audio and text localization. Traditional Chinese will have in-game text localization only.

Q. Can I play Wildgate offline?
A. No. Wildgate is an online, match-based game that requires an internet connection.

Q. Is Wildgate only multiplayer?
A. Wildgate's primary "Play" mode is multiplayer only. Both our in-game "Tutorial" and "Firing Range" modes can be played solo, however. If you do not wish to play against other humans, you can queue up for the "Practice vs. AI" mode (note: this requires at least two players in a crew to play, though four players are recommended).

Q. Will this playtest include the full game?
A. Yes. But Wildgate is still a work in progress. We'll continue to develop features, refine systems, improve performance, and fix bugs leading up to the game's release later this year.

Q. What are the PC requirements for this playtest?
A. The following requirements apply to the Community Preview playtests only. These specs are likely to change prior to release.

Minimum Specs

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  
• Windows 10 and above
  
• Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
  
• Graphics: GeForce GTX 1070 Ti [8 GB] or Radeon RX 5700 XT [8 GB]
  
• Memory: 16 GB
  
• Direct X: Version 12
  
• Storage: SSD, 50 GB
  
• Network: Broadband Internet Connection

Recommended Specs

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  
• Windows 10 and above
  
• Processor: Intel i7-9700K / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
  
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
  
• Memory: 16GB RAM
  
• Storage: 50GB available
  
• Direct X: Version 12
  
• Network: Broadband Internet Connection

Q. Can I use a controller to play on PC?
A. Yes! Controllers are fully supported in Wildgate.

Q. Will any progress I make during the playtest carry over?
A. No. There are no plans at this time for your progress or in-game store items to carry over.

Q. Will I receive any rewards for participating in this playtest?
A. We do not have any plans to provide rewards for playtest participation.

Q. What’s the file size for the Wildgate Community Preview client?
A. The client is 8.85 GB.

Q. Can I create and/or share content from this playtest?
A. Yes, you can! This is not a closed playtest, so you are encouraged to take screenshots, livestream your play sessions, record feedback videos, and talk about the game.

Q. How do I report bugs?
You can share playtest bug reports in our Discord server[discord.gg] or on our website[bugs-wildgate.dreamhaven.com]. Full details on how to submit a bug report can be found here[support-wildgate.dreamhaven.com].

Q. How do I give developers feedback?
A. You are welcome to share playtest feedback in our Discord server[discord.gg].

Q. If I’m having a technical or account issue, how can I get help?
A. Please submit a request via our Player Support portal[wildgate.gg].

Q. Will current playtesters be guaranteed access to future playtests?
A. To be determined! This will be based on our playtest needs and requirements.

Q. What if I have questions that are not covered here?
A. We encourage you to visit our Player Support portal[wildgate.gg] and Discord server[discord.gg] for more information!