The alarms are blaring, your ship’s hull is on fire, and a rival crew is blasting through your airlock. This isn’t just another space game, this is a typical Tuesday in Wildgate. It’s chaotic, intense, and some of the most fun you can have with friends. If you’re looking to turn that chaos into a victory screen, you’ve landed in the right place. Forget sifting through dozens of videos. This is the only Wildgate beginner’s guide you’ll need to go from a fumbling rookie to a feared captain. Let’s get you ready for your first flight.
What Is in Our Wildgate Beginner’s Guide?
What is Wildgate? A Sci-Fi Pirate’s Dream
Think of Wildgate as Sea of Thieves meets a competitive arena shooter. It’s a team based online game where five crews of four players are dropped into a large map called “The Reach.”
Your goal is to “Outsmart, Outrun, or Outgun” the other crews. You’ll manage a spaceship with your team, gather resources, and fight. But don’t get too comfortable looting, every match is a race to prepare for the inevitable showdown with other players.
How to Win: The Two Paths to Victory
In Wildgate, there are two main ways to secure a win, each requiring a different strategy.
- Victory 1: Last Crew Standing (Outgun): This is the most straightforward path. You hunt down and destroy the ships of all four rival crews. Once a ship’s reactor is destroyed, that crew is permanently eliminated from the match. According to community feedback, this is often the most common outcome.
- Victory 2: The Artifact Heist (Outrun/Outsmart): This path involves finding a unique item called “The Artifact,” grabbing it, and escaping through a portal known as the Wildgate. The catch? The moment you pick up the Artifact, your ship’s location is instantly revealed to every other team on the map, turning you into the lobby’s number one target. This makes the escape a tense, high stakes run for your life.
If the 60 minute match timer runs out before a crew wins, The Reach itself claims victory, and all remaining crews lose. This ensures every match has a definitive end.
Your First Match: The Gameplay Loop
A typical match in Wildgate can be broken down into three phases. Understanding this flow is key to success.
1. The Early Game, First 5-10 Minutes (Gear Up and Get Going): Your crew will spawn near a Point of Interest (POI). Your immediate priority is to explore it to find your first set of ship upgrades. While some crew members head inside the POI, others should mine nearby asteroids: blue for Ice to repair the ship and pink/red for Fuel for the ship’s booster. At the same time, one crewmate should use the Probe Station to scan the surrounding area, revealing other POIs, resource clusters, and, most importantly, the locations of rival crews.
2. The Mid Game (Hunt or Be Hunted): After the initial looting phase, your crew has a choice to make. Do you continue looting higher tier POIs for even better gear, or do you use your early upgrades to hunt down a weaker, unsuspecting crew?. This is the core “PvE to power up PvP” loop. You clear PvE objectives inside POIs to unlock loot rooms containing powerful cannons and modules for your ship, which directly boost your effectiveness in PvP combat. But be warned: firing your ship’s weapons reveals your position to everyone on the map, potentially attracting third parties to clean up the weakened survivors of a long fight.
3. The Late Game (The Final Showdown): Everything changes once the Artifact is found and picked up. The crew holding it becomes a moving target for the entire server. The escape portal, the Wildgate, appears at a random location, creating a focal point for a final, frantic battle. This phase is defined by intense ship to ship combat, desperate boarding actions, and strategic maneuvering around the gate as the Artifact holders try to fend off attackers and escape.
Know Your Ship: The Four Classes
Your ship is your base, your weapon, and your lifeline. Choosing the right one for your crew’s playstyle is your first major strategic decision. There are four distinct classes:
- The Hunter (Gun Ship): The versatile starter ship. It’s fast and agile with 3 forward facing cannons, but has lower health. Its speed increases when its shields are down, making it great for aggressive pursuits and quick getaways.
- The Bastion (Secure Ship): The “tank” of the fleet. It boasts the highest health and comes equipped with internal security doors and a device that makes it very difficult to board. It’s slow but incredibly durable, perfect for crews who want to hunker down and win long, drawn out battles.
- The Privateer (Battle Ship): The glass cannon. It features a gun deck with 6 turrets and double projectile velocity, giving it the highest damage potential in the game. It has low agility, but if positioned correctly, it can melt enemy ships with overwhelming firepower.
- The Scout (Fast Ship): The fastest and most agile ship. It’s ideal for a “hit and run” playstyle and excels at grabbing the Artifact and outrunning pursuers. This ship is fragile and should avoid direct, head on confrontations.
Meet the Prospectors: Your Space Outlaw
Your character, or “Prospector,” brings unique perks to the crew. While there are several characters, they fall into four main roles. A balanced crew is often the most successful.
Engineers like Sal are repair specialists, keeping your ship in one piece during intense combat.
Ship Defenders like Sammo are built to repel boarders, with abilities that help them locate and eliminate intruders.
Explorers like Venture are designed for efficient looting, able to survive longer outside the ship.
Boarders are the aggressive infiltrators. Characters like Ion, Mophs, Adrian, and Kae each have unique ways to get onto enemy ships and cause chaos from the inside.
Choosing the right mix of characters is crucial. For a detailed breakdown of the best Prospectors in the current meta, you can check out our Wildgate character tier list.
Combat Fundamentals: Ship to Ship and Boarding
Mastering combat means excelling at two things: ship to ship dogfights and on foot boarding.
For ship combat, the pilot must be unpredictable, constantly moving and communicating with the gunners to line up devastating shots. Managing your shields is critical: lower them for a speed boost, but always raise them when taking fire.
Boarding is a high risk, high reward tactic to cripple an enemy from within. When you board, your goal is to cause chaos. Overload their reactor to start a self destruct sequence, seize their helm to crash the ship, or simply steal their best cannon right off its mount.
Final Tips for Your Crew
Victory in Wildgate comes down to teamwork. A silent crew is a losing crew, so use voice chat or the in game ping system to stay coordinated. Know when to retreat from a losing fight, it’s better to escape and repair than to be destroyed. Most importantly, make sure everyone has a job. If you aren’t piloting or shooting, you should be repairing, gathering resources, or scanning for threats. When your crew works as one, you’ll be unstoppable. Good luck, Captain.
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