Wildkeepers Rising is a twin stick shooter where you can control various Guardian monsters to help you in your battles. Read on to learn everything we know, our review of the early access version, and more.
Everything We Know About Wildkeepers Rising
Wildkeepers Rising Plot
The game is set in a world that has recently endured a large-scale battle between Guardians and their bonded Wildkeepers against an overwhelming force of corrupted monsters. However, during the conflict, the Wildkeepers were somehow separated from their Guardians, setting the stage for the game's events as they work to recover the remaining Guardian beasts and prepare for another confrontation.
Wildkeepers Rising Gameplay
Wildkeepers Rising is a roguelite RPG bullet heaven where you capture and train a variety of powerful Guardian beasts to take down relentless waves of invading monsters.
Blending RPG storytelling with intense action, the game pits you against hand-drawn fantasy creatures inspired by the imaginative worlds of Akira Toriyama and Jim Henson.
Wildkeepers Rising Release Date
Wildkeepers Rising’s Early Access release was launched on March 31, 2025 for Steam. Interested players can download the game on their official Steam Store page for $9.99.
Wildkeepers Rising Review (Demo)
Very Promising, Very Early Access
Twin-stick shooters have become a rather obvious guilty pleasure of mine. It’s gotten to the point where I actively look for cheap ones on Steam just to scratch an itch I never thought I would have. Honestly speaking, I blame Holocure for this even more than Vampire Survivors.
Anyway, it’s rather difficult for twin-stick shooters to distinguish themselves from the rest. It’s one of the most popular genres in terms of released games, at least for indies. But Wildkeepers Rising managed to catch my eye for having a specific tag I rarely—if ever—see in the genre: Creature Collector.
Unfortunately, though, that tag feels quite misplaced here. While you do get “creatures” known as Guardians and play with them, it lacks one essential factor: the exploration and discovery of new ones to capture. That’s because Wildkeepers Rising simply hands the Guardians to you at every relevant stage, allowing you to capture them without any of the usual effort required in other games. Just complete the level, and you’re done.
Besides that, Wildkeepers Rising mostly plays like your average twin-stick shooter. All you need to do is walk around avoiding anything that hurts, shoot at anything that moves, and upgrade specific party members whenever you level up. Additionally, there are treasure chests that provide team-wide upgrades and beacons where you can recruit a Guardian from the ones you’ve already unlocked.
Deep Teambuilding, But…
Wildkeepers Rising currently features a total of 24 monsters called Guardians that you can recruit per run. Considering that you can recruit up to four of them, there are around 10,626 different team combinations you can create. That may seem like an absurd number—and it literally is. However, the actual viable number is far lower, as some Guardians don’t work well together. Still, it's an impressive figure nonetheless.
The same, unfortunately, can’t be said for playable character variety. On release, you only have two (later three) characters to choose from. That’s a far cry from most twin-stick shooters, which tend to launch with at least several characters or classes.
You might think that the number of Guardians and the sheer number of possible team compositions could make up for the lack of playable characters. It doesn’t—at least, not in a way that meaningfully changes your experience. Since the monsters are mostly controlled by AI, your only real role in the game is to walk around and pick upgrades.
In a way, the Guardians here can be seen as little more than homing weapons with extra layers of depth. In fact, you even select them the same way you would a weapon—choosing from a selection of randomly offered options.
Hilariously, Engagingly Imbalanced
The main—well, I guess you could say—side effect of designing a game centered around entities you don’t directly control is that the balancing will always be off in one way or another. And as an Early Access title that isn’t even a week old, Wildkeepers Rising suffers from this issue in a way that would make even the Super Collab weapons from Holocure jealous.
Before proceeding, I should probably explain why balancing Wildkeepers Rising is such a tough challenge. The game features a sigil system that allows you to modify either your character or their Guardian’s kit. These modifications range from adding extra attacks and increasing specific stats to outright creating a copy of a Guardian on the field.
That last one, in particular, holds incredible potential for absurdly degenerate builds if used well. For example, you can attach it to a maxed-out Reeza/Broodmother, allowing you to field up to forty-four spiderlings that relentlessly hunt down enemies in a never-ending swarm. Alternatively, you can apply it to Turtail and permanently stun anything they focus on.
Doubling specific Guardians isn’t the only absurdity you can pull off, though. Other examples include giving Coal both Freeze Touch and Wither Touch, allowing it to spread all three status effects to entire groups of enemies every time it attacks, thanks to its passive Burn effect. Or using Ghostly Crit, which increases all Guardians’ critical chance whenever one of them faints—a sigil that’s easily abused by Kiraboom, whose specialty lies in repeatedly fainting and reviving to hit the entire screen.
Unfortunately, obtaining sigils is incredibly difficult since you can only get them once every few levels. But if you do manage to get the right one for the right Guardian in your party, you’re almost guaranteed to finish the stage.
The Story Is a Mere Contrivance
A lot of twin stick shooters don’t have a story that extends beyond their initial premise. Does this affect those games in any way? Most of the time, not at all. In fact, I’d argue that excessive storytelling actually hurts grindy twin stick shooters more than it helps.
So, what is Wildkeepers Rising’s story, anyway? According to the prologue, the world has just experienced a battle between Guardians and their partner Wildkeepers against a tide of corrupted monsters. During that battle, the Wildkeepers were somehow separated from their Guardians, leading to the game’s events, where they must rescue the remnants of the Guardian beasts and fight back once more.
Simple, right? Yes, and the game never attempts to pull off anything shocking either. If anything, the story is just there to provide context for why you’re doing whatever it is you’re about to do. And that’s great. The fewer distractions from gameplay—at least for the kind of story Wildkeepers Rising has—the better.
Grindy, As Expected
Aside from sigils, another way to strengthen your team is through out-of-combat investment in ability scores. The game allows you to upgrade core shared stats such as damage, crit chance, health, movement speed, and even a single revival charge. These upgrades require special currencies, which drop from stages and serve as one-time rewards for clearing them or earning achievements.
You can earn a few hundred of each currency at the highest level, excluding achievement-based ones, which rely on luck to obtain. Sounds decent, right? Well, what if I told you that maximizing just one stat typically costs over 10,000? If you’re just starting out and struggling to get by, that’s over 50 runs just to max out a single stat.
Thankfully, the game’s absurd balance makes AFK-accessible builds possible, so you can let it play itself in the background. Just check in occasionally to pick upgrades, and you’re good.
That said, the game definitely has potential despite its quirks and issues. Sure, it may lack a lot of essential elements now, but once it gets going, it could rise above the flood of twin stick shooters on the market—something Valkyrie Squad: Siege Breakers didn’t manage to do.
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Wildkeepers Rising Product Information
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| Title | WILDKEEPERS RISING |
|---|---|
| Release Date | March 31, 2025 |
| Developer | Lioncode Games |
| Publisher | Lioncode Games |
| Supported Platforms | PC |
| Genre | Creature Collector, Shooter |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Wildkeepers Rising Official Website |
