Switching Things Up in the Saga

WolfQuest has always sought to put players into the role of a typical wolf in Yellowstone National Park. Usually, wolves have a rather repetitive life: hunt, feed pups, maintain territory, rinse and repeat. And presumably, that’s the way they like it. Humans, however, do like some variety. So one goal for the upcoming WolfQuest Saga* is to add more variety to the gameplay. We can’t really change up that core gameplay, but the new quests coming in the Saga will certainly help. We talked about one of those a few weeks ago -- where the player can switch into the role of a pup as it disperses from the player’s pack -- but that’s not the only one. Another also involves dispersals: When you’re playing as a dispersal, looking for a mate, you’ve always been able to form a new pack with another dispersal or by tempting a member of a rival pack to leave that pack and join you. But in the Saga, you’ll also be able to join a rival pack! If you come across a pack which has lost one of its pack leaders, and the remaining leader is the opposite sex as your wolf, you can engage in courtship and then, if successful, become the new co-leader of that pack. (Note that this is only an option when you’re a solo wolf -- we are not doing blended, Brady-Bunch families.) Another new feature is what we’re calling Pack Succession: if your wolf is an Elder Wolf (age 8 or older) or an Ironwolf, when it dies, you can either finish the game -- or you can continue the game by playing as either your widowed mate, or one of your offspring (anyone over the age of one). After you respawn as either of those, you’ll carry on, leading the pack. You’ll need to find a mate, of course. In both of these new scenarios, the Family Tree will consider any pups of the year that you are now suddenly foster-parenting as your offspring, and they will appear in your Family Tree. Older offspring will not be in the tree, which is a compromise but necessary to avoid some crazy complications depending how things unfold subsequently. These new features should open the game up to more stories for your wolf, for your offspring, and for your pack. Obviously this kind of expansion takes a lot of playtesting and bug fixing, so we’re deep in it -- but we’re definitely going to release the Saga later this year. ____________________ The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs about it and other new features! We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready.