How Wildkeeper’s Rising’s Map Design Adds a Layer of Strategy to the ‘Bullet Heaven’ Formula

Lioncode Games’ upcoming Wildkeepers Rising is the studio’s entry into the growing Bullet Heaven subgenre popularized by Vampire Survivors. But what helps separate Wildkeepers Rising from a growing number of games with a healthy amount of Poncle’s Vampire Survivors in their DNA is the game’s monster-collecting and RPG elements, which effectively transform the experience into a mic between classic Survivor-like gameplay and Pokemon. That’s far from the only twist that Wildkeepers Rising brings to the table, though, with its unique take on map design presenting some exciting strategic opportunities.

Most games similar to Vampire Survivors tend to stick with maps that are a singular flat plane, with the occasional geometry thrown in to act as barriers to movement and ratchet up tension as mobs close in on the player character. Wildkeepers Rising intentionally switches this up by adding some depth and verticality to the game’s level design, including strategic use of bridges, water features, and choke points in some of the biomes for players to effectively route enemy movement to their advantage. In doing so, the game adds another variable to how players can influence their success or failure in each run.

Adding Geographical Variety to Wildkeepers Rising’s Maps Was a Conscious Choice

Following the recent hands-off preview presentation for Wildkeepers Rising, Game Rant had the chance to ask Lioncode Games some questions regarding what was shown. One of the more striking elements on display in Wildkeepers‘ preview build were the maps; not just the variety of biomes on display, but how varied they were in terms of their topography, depth, and dimension. It was clear that players could be strategic in their runs and carefully route enemy movement around or through obstacles and choke points to funnel enemies into “hot zones”, not unlike what players can do in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. Wildkeepers Rising‘s director Sergio Garcas was quick to point out that this was a conscious design decision:

“…using the maps intelligently is specifically something that we designed for, and maps will have areas that are more open areas that are choke points. If you’re confident and you’re powerful, you can definitely go to a place like that and have enemies come to you and just slaughter them.

Other times, you might find that the opposite is true, that you’re hanging by a thread and now you’re cornered in a cul-de-sac somewhere, and you have to fight your way out of there. We think that this definitely adds gameplay compared to having, like, an open map where nothing is really happening, so we’re definitely adding different topography to the different maps.”

Even beyond the ways that the varied maps support the team’s gameplay goals for Wildkeepers Rising, art director Lyle Moore notes that the design of the maps is something that the team put into consideration as a means of environmental storytelling. Moore notes that the team wants the player to feel as if they’re “on an adventure when they’re moving around our maps and looking for secrets,” which becomes more likely when maps have actual topography rather than taking place on a flat 2D plane.

Wildkeepers Rising is currently in development for PC.