Wildgate: Emergence Preview

Hello Prospectors, 

With less than a week to go until Wildgate: Emergence, it’s time to dive deeper into everything new coming to the game on November 19! We’ll be pulling back the curtain on all our new content, including…

• Free Weekend, Free Trial, and Double XP – Dates & Details
• New Game Modes - Treasure Hunt and Fleet Battle
• New Prospector - Charlie 
• New 1-2 Player Ship - The Outlaw
• New Weapon and Equipment – The Resonator and Medic Drone

Let's dive right in! 🌌

FREE WEEKEND, FREE TRIAL, & DOUBLE XP DETAILS

In our last Dev Update, we shared how our upcoming Free Weekend and Free Trial experiences would work. Now it’s time for the dates.

After Wildgate: Emergence launches on November 19, we’re opening the gates to everyone to try our new prospector, ship, game modes and more in a Free Weekend on Steam and Xbox November 20 - November 24. Playstation players will also be able to leap into our Free Trial on the same day.

• Free Weekend - Steam and Xbox - Nov 20 - Nov 24 @ 10am PT
• Free Trial - Playstation - Starts Nov 20
• Free Trial - Steam and Xbox - Starts Nov 24 @ 2pm PT
• Double XP Weekend - Nov 26 - Nov 28

We’ll also be lining up our deepest sale yet on Wildgate on Steam in time for Black Friday, with PlayStation and Xbox sales incoming afterwards during the holiday season.

To learn more about how all of this works, visit our Player Support page.

DEVELOPER VIDEO PREVIEW

As much as we all love a good blog, we know some of you are absolutely more video type of people. If you’d rather get the highlights straight from the Reach’s mouth, check out Dustin and Ryan running through everything new as they hop into battle in our Wildgate: Emergence Developer Preview!

 

MEET THE NEW PROSPECTOR: CHARLIE

A veil between existences has been torn - and through it, steps Charlie! 

 

One of the Auran, a mysterious people from close to the galactic core, Charlie has chosen to live her bio-years in the Reach. Her initial priorities? Learning about four dimensional space, understanding if hardpoints can be lonely, and investigating the appearance of some curious precursor orbs that sing in the Reach…

Charlie is our first prospector with more dedicated supportive abilities. She can instantly resurrect allies, and makes that easier by being able to teleport to them in the blink of an eye. This includes teleporting through walls, providing she’s not holding an Artifact!

Charlie thrives in the thick of the fight — darting between fires, shock fields, and reactor blasts without fear. Her connection to both the galaxy and Reach’s strange energies means she can heal from what hurts others, turning Reach Anomalies, Shock Fields and shipboard disasters alike into her own personal medbay.

As with all things Wildgate, we’ll be listening closely to your feedback on how Charlie feels for you to play. We hope she’ll give some of you the more supportive playstyle you’ve been looking for, and can’t wait to see the shenanigans you’ll get into with her in Emergence!

NEW SHIP: THE OUTLAW

The Outlaw is Wildgate’s first dedicated small crew ship, built for Prospectors who want tight teamwork, fast fights, and little downtime. It’ll be available to play in Treasure Hunt and Artifact Brawl. In Treasure Hunt, you can queue with an Outlaw either as a single/solo player (for the bold), or as a 2 player crew. 

Compact, quick, and perfect for Treasure Hunt runs, the Outlaw relies on speed and precision instead of heavy armor. Everything’s in easy reach within its two-floor layout - engines, stations, and doorways, to give solo or smaller crew adventurers a fighting chance at…fighting. 

Robot gunners are on hand to cover your flanks, and with a RoboBuddy even patrolling to help against unwanted boarders, you’ll always have some extra helping hands in a scrap. Flying straight into the guns of a Privateer may not be a fight you can easily win, but we can’t wait to see you try to prove us wrong!

Want to see the Outlaw in action? Check out our Emergence Preview video with Dustin and Ryan, as they take one for a spin in Treasure Hunt!

TWO NEW GAME MODES

From community and player feedback, Wildgate’s first two new game modes arrive with Emergence next week. Treasure Hunt and Fleet Battle join the ranks.

As a result, we’ve decided to rename Artifact Hunt to Artifact Brawl. 

With Treasure Hunt’s introduction as a lower stakes, lower pressured way to play, we felt renaming Artifact Hunt to Brawl reflected its more high-pressured nature and pace.

Here’s a deeper dive into our two new game modes. Both are ‘In Development’ - we’ll be building these together with you, and can’t wait to hear about what you think when they’re live!

Treasure Hunt

Treasure Hunt is for Prospectors who want a slower run with big rewards — space to explore, grab loot, and (hopefully) not get vaporized.

You’ll still fly, crack hulls, and haul treasure — just with more breathing room and opt-in danger.

HOW IT WORKS

Drop in, grab loot, stash it on your ship, and extract. Every piece you bring back turns into XP for your Adventure tracks — unlocking skins, characters, gadgets, and the new Emergence Adventure track.

WHAT’S DIFFERENT

• 3 Always-Open Wildgates - Leave anytime. No Artifact needed.
• Dynamic Quests - Up to 5 optional objectives per match — Be warned - some may require co-operating with other crews. It’s dangerous to go alone.
• Optional PvP - There might be other crews in your sector — or maybe not. You can fight them for extra loot, or stay focused on the haul.
• Cursed Hardpoints - new to Treasure Hunt, these hardpoints will give you a unique benefit, but at a price. Use Cursed Hardpoints to add challenge, risk and reward to your runs!
• AI Encounters - Treasure Hunt mixes scavenging with ship battles against raiders, drones, and whatever else calls the Reach home
• 3 Player Ships Maximum - this game mode will require less players and crews for a match to start. Our new 2 player ship, the Outlaw, will be available to queue as both a 2 person and solo crew to further support this.

Be warned - stay in the Reach for a long time, and player ships may not be the only thing that begins hunting you. Whether you push your luck for one more quest and run into an unexpected surprise, or sprint to the nearest gate with your cargo on fire, every treasure run tells a story!

Fleet Battle

If Treasure Hunt is the Reach’s version of a quieter night in, Fleet Battle is the opposite.

This new game mode, arriving with Emergence, drops you straight into the brawl.  Minimal scavenging, maximum combat. You spawn, you boost, and someone’s hull is on fire within minutes.

Here, two teams of up to 12 players each battle across fleets of three ships per side.

It’s all about close-quarters ship combat, constant boarding, and relentless shenanigans.

The first team to 2000 points wins. Points can be scored by retrieving Artifacts (which spawn regularly), destroying enemy prospectors and ships. Ships respawn - so if you’re down, you’re never out of the action for long.

To give you different ways to create some new kinds of chaos, Fleet Battle has several differences from Artifact Brawl.

• Unlimited ice, fuel, and torpedoes
• Reactor overloads are more dangerous
• Ships spawn less fires
• POIs are all revealed at match start
• Robot gunner support on every ship
• Auto-ice your reactor after taking damage
• Ships respawn quickly
• Backfill always enabled

Finally, turbines are available on tap in Fleet Battle! You’ll be able to tap C to summon one at any time to speed you into any fight of your choice. Due to strange Reach energy field fluctuations, these turbines miraculously disappear once unequipped. Sal is somewhat disappointed at this, to say the least.

At launch, 4 player ships (Hunter, Privateer, Bastion) will be available in Fleet Battle. With Emergence, the Scout is becoming a 3 player ship. As with all things Wildgate, we’ll be listening to your feedback on Fleet Battle, seeing how you play the mode, and making changes as we go.

Whether you’re testing a new loadout or just need to blow off steam after a tough Artifact Brawl, we hope Fleet Battle will give you a great place to watch (or make) the Reach burn.

NEW ADVENTURE TRACK

A new free Adventure Track arrives with Emergence, packed with 48 new rewards to earn! From the elegant Aetheron collection to some more of the chaotic Reach Renegade line, there are sprays, voice lines, ship names, skins, fireworks, and of course, a brand-new Prospector in Charlie herself. If selected in your Rewards menu, any Treasure Hunt hauls, Fleet Battle victories or Artifact Brawl games will count towards earning you some sweet, sweet loot.

NEW WEAPON: THE RESONATOR

The Resonator is a rhythmic weapon — part energy cannon, part grenade launcher. Charge the weapon by hitting things with its beam primary fire, then blast away with a charged up right click grenade secondary fire for big damage.

NEW EQUIPMENT: MEDIC DRONE

Meet the Medic (Drone) — the third member of Wildgate’s robo-buddy family.

If the Attack Drone is your floating turret and the Repair Drone is your mobile wrench, the Medic Drone is your pocket paramedic.

Deploy it anywhere inside or outside your ship and it’ll hover near its owner, patching up any Prospectors or allies in range.

NEW POI: EUPHONIC SPHERES

There are places in the Reach that were never meant for Prospectors.

Massive, hollow orbs drift through the void — ancient, humming, and alive with strange resonance. 

They’ve become known as ‘Euphonic Spheres’ around the Docks, though no one agrees who named them first. With their architecture hinting at craftsmanship of  precursor civilization origin, their purpose so far is unknown. Their secrets will be yours to unlock in Emergence.

CUSTOM LOBBIES, ANOTHER REACH REGION, AND MORE

We’ve packed a lot of content into Emergence, but these aren’t the only things in our biggest update yet. In our previous Dev Update, we’ve revealed the scorched wastelands of an area of the Reach known as the Dead Worlds, as well as a long-requested feature that lets you run the Reach with your friends in Custom Lobbies. 

A Word From Moonshot

There’s a lot packed into Emergence — our first new Prospector, a new ship, two new game modes, new weapons, new gear, a new region of the Reach, and the biggest round of additions and improvements we’ve made yet. We hope this update gives existing players and owners of Wildgate great reasons to jump back in and see what’s changed. As for new players (and perhaps your friends), it’s the perfect moment to try Wildgate for free during our Free Weekend and Trial ongoing after.

We’re incredibly excited for you to play it all — and, if we’re honest, a little nervous too. Launching something this big always comes with a mix of pride, hope, but also realism. Wildgate has come a long way since launch, and we know there’s still plenty more to do.

As always, we’d love to hear what you think. Share your feedback, clips, and chaos with us in the official Wildgate Discord feedback forums, in the comments here, or wherever you’re discussing Wildgate — it’s where we listen, learn, and build the next steps together.

Thank you for crewing up with us, and once more - into the Reach!

— The Moonshot Team