Game Information

Game Title: Wanderstop

Platforms:

• Xbox Series X/S (Mar 11, 2025)
• PlayStation 5 (Mar 11, 2025)
• PC (Mar 11, 2025)

Trailers:

• Wanderstop - Official Release Date Trailer | Games with Wings Showcase 2025
• Wanderstop Launch Trailer 4K
• WANDERSTOP | Coming to PC & PS5 March 11

Developer: Ivy Road

Publisher: Annapurna Interactive

Review Aggregator:

OpenCritic - 79 average - 83% recommended - 25 reviews

Critic Reviews

A Gaming Network - Sami-Jo Perruzza - 10 / 10

This is more than a game… It’s an experience that will stay with you long after you’ve brewed your last cup of tea.

Shacknews - Josh Broadwell - 10 / 10

Wanderstop is like Spiritfarer for burnout sufferers and overachievers. The central focus is meaningful and expertly executed in its own right. However, it’s the attention to detail in every other area that makes Wanderstop feel special, to the point where anything, even just planting flowers, enriches everything else. …

I touched on this in a recent thread, but thought I’d expand on my thoughts a little here. Void War was a featured game during the recent Steam Next Fest and it’s developers openly claim that it was heavily ‘inspired’ by FTL, one of the most popular indie-roguelikes of all time.

It’s the nature of creative works that people will inevitably draw inspiration from previous works. Terry Pratchett once compared Tolkein’s effect on the fantasy genre to Mt Fuji in Japanese culture, saying that The Lord of the Rings was such a touchstone that its influence can be felt in all fantasy since, even if simply by deliberate avoidance. Clearly such creative inspiration is inevitable and in most cases it is acceptable to draw on previous works. However, I feel like Void War has crossed the line, and is taking as much as they can from FTL to build their game, rather than creating something original.

A simple comparison of the two games’ Steam pages should …

They used to have so many unique effects. Serrated quiver, lance of pursuit, doubloon, defiant shell and more. Packed some nice stats and you had a wide variety. Now everyone just runs some generic stuff with either hp, mana regen, attack speed etc. Let alone even these got so much lower. Idk about you but it feels generic and like a step back to me

that’s all

Core Zeus (and Zeus in general) is busted and I’ll explain why

First we have to understand what static field does and how exactly it works. I’ll use the numbers for a level 3 (achieved at level 12 zeus) static field. I’ll also assume a 2000hp enemy hero, which is actually conservatively low for most heroes at the 15 minute mark in the current year.

Each time zeus hits an enemy a spell or right click, static field deals 7% of the target’s current hp as magic damage. For example using a level 4 lightning bolt on our 2000hp target would deal 7% of 2000 as damage, or 140, followed by 380 damage from lightning bolt, for a total of 520 damage from a single spell

You buy shard instantly at minute 15. By this time you’ll have arc lightning and thunderbolt maxed out. Imagine the following 5 second sequence assuming 100 right click damage:

[spell -> static field damage -> spell damage]

Thunderbolt (2000hp -> 1840 -> 1480)

Arc lightning (1480 -> …

Core Jakiro (and Jakiro in general) is busted and I’ll explain why.

First we’ll have to understand what Liquid Frost does and how exactly it works. I’ll use the numbers for the maxed out (Level 4) liquid frost. I’ll also refer to the twin attack from Jakiro’s innate as a “rightclick” and a single attack projectile as an “attack” to avoid confusion.

When you first apply Liquid Frost it will cause a single instance of 25 damage. Afterwards for the duration of the debuff (4s) Jakiro’s attacks and abilities will proc a damage instance of 30. Except, this is apparently bugged and it will actually trigger twice. To illustrate I recorded a short clip. I used Elder Titan to reduce the dummies magic resist to 0 and I used Underlord Atrophy Aura + Tide Anchor Smash to reduce Jakiro’s attack damage to 0 (note that attacks that deal 0 damage will not trigger Liquid Frost). Our expected damage is 100 from Dualbreath, 10 Liquid Frost …

Here are my thoughts and the general consensus from players around my rank (Emissary V) about the new map.

Firstly, its beautiful. Everyone loves the art pass.

Problems with this iteration of the map: Too jungle focused, High Mobility High Burst High CC characters are too powerful:

Currently, with the removal of a lane. It makes moving through the map more dangerous and slow as the average character. Because there are less ziplines, getting backup at any given spot take SOO much longer. This encourages high mobility characters that can traverse the top of buildings easily. This is most apparent when playing grounded characters like infernus. Trying to chase down a lash/pocket/holliday feels impossible now since they can simply get ontop of a buildings and get out of line of sight within seconds. What balanced this before was the inclusion of wide open areas in lanes that made it difficult for them to escape, now the only somewhat open area is the middle point of the sidelanes.

As a …

On the surface, the game core is left untouched, some tweaks are great, some I can criticise, but seemingly nothing should be so impactful that I’d start playing much less because the games don’t bring me as much joy.

However, somehow it feels very different and not in a good way. I took my time to adjust and it didn’t get better. And the worst part is that I can’t even pinpoint what’s wrong exactly. Anyone has similar experience?