The Wild Eight

Lore & Background

The Wild Eight is the first major project from Eight Points, a developer based in Yakutia, Russia. The studio launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $50,000 and build a community around the game, achieving full funding with 11 days remaining. A pre-alpha demo was released during the campaign, showcasing the art style and core gameplay such as crafting and resource management, though it lacked multiplayer. The game entered early access in February 2017. In November 2017, Eight Points sold the game to publisher HypeTrain Digital, citing internal conflicts. The Wild Eight left early access and was released for PC on October 3, 2019, followed by a PlayStation 4 release in October 2020. On December 11, 2023, the Steam listing was updated to change the developer name back to Eight Points, which had been renamed Fntastic in the meantime. HypeTrain Digital stated they terminated all business relations with the developer in 2017 and made the change to avoid a review bomb related to Fntastic's newest game, The Day Before.

Reader's Guide

The Wild Eight occupies a notable place in the survival game genre as a cooperative experience set in the Alaskan wilderness. Its development history reflects the challenges of indie game creation, including a successful Kickstarter campaign that funded the project and built an early community. The game's early access period drew mixed reactions from critics: Rock Paper Shotgun described the 2017 version as 'definitely a game about watching meters' and noted the reviewer never survived long enough to find quests. PC Gamer praised the art style in 2018 but found the hunger mechanic frustrating and the crafting requirements 'a little silly.' Upon full release, the PlayStation 4 version received 'mixed or average reviews' according to Metacritic. The game's legacy is also tied to the controversy surrounding its developer's later title, The Day Before, which led to a retroactive change of the developer name on Steam to avoid review bombing. Despite these issues, The Wild Eight remains a functional survival game with a story campaign, cooperative play, and distinctive mechanics such as respawning with the ability to recover dropped equipment or cook and eat one's own corpse.

Did You Know?

• The Wild Eight was developed by Eight Points, a studio based in Yakutia, Russia.
• Players who die can respawn and recover their equipment near their corpse, and can also cook and eat their own corpse.
• The game's Kickstarter campaign was fully funded with 11 days remaining.
• In 2023, the Steam listing was updated to change the developer name back to Eight Points to avoid review bombing related to Fntastic's game The Day Before.

Survival in the Alaskan Wild

The Wild Eight hurls up to eight players into the frozen expanse of Alaska following a catastrophic plane crash. Stripped of modern comforts, survivors must band together to keep themselves alive in a landscape that offers little mercy. The core loop revolves around gathering raw materials, crafting essential tools, and constructing shelter to fend off the brutal cold. Threats extend well beyond the elements; mutated wolves prowl the wilderness and pose a constant danger to any group that strays too far from safety. Death in the game is permanent for a given character but not for the player behind the controller. When a survivor falls, they respawn and must travel back to their own corpse to reclaim any equipment that was dropped at the point of death. In a darkly humorous twist, the game even permits survivors to cook and consume their fallen companions, turning a grim moment into a resource-management decision. The title supports both cooperative multiplayer and solo play, and the final release added a story-driven campaign alongside structured quests, giving players narrative motivation beyond mere survival.

From Yakutia to Early Access

The Wild Eight represents the first major project from Eight Points, a small studio based in Yakutia, Russia. To fund development and cultivate an early community, the team launched a Kickstarter campaign with a $50,000 goal. The project reached full funding with eleven days still remaining on the clock, and a pre-alpha demo was made available to backers during the campaign window. That early build had no multiplayer functionality but served to showcase the game's distinctive art direction, its crafting systems, and the resource-management gameplay that would define the final product. The title entered Steam Early Access in February 2017. However, just ten months later in November of that same year, Eight Points sold the game to publisher HypeTrain Digital, a move the studio attributed to internal conflicts. Under HypeTrain's stewardship, the game left Early Access and launched on PC on October 3, 2019, followed by a PlayStation 4 port in October 2020.

A Mixed Critical Verdict

Critics who encountered The Wild Eight during its Early Access period offered pointed observations. Rock Paper Shotgun, reviewing the 2017 build, described the experience as "definitely a game about watching meters," a comment that captured the constant vigilance required to monitor survival stats. The same reviewer noted that the difficulty curve was so punishing they never lived long enough to encounter any of the game's quests. PC Gamer, writing in 2018, took a more balanced view. The publication singled out the game's art style as a genuine strength, praising its visual identity. Yet the reviewer also flagged the hunger mechanic as a source of frustration and called the crafting requirements "a little silly," suggesting that some of the resource-gathering logic felt arbitrary rather than grounded. After the full release, the PlayStation 4 version settled into a middling position on Metacritic, where it was classified as receiving "mixed or average reviews." The aggregate picture suggests a game with strong visual appeal and a compelling survival premise, but one whose mechanical execution left both early testers and post-launch reviewers somewhat divided.

The 2023 Steam Listing Controversy

What began as a quiet survival title became the center of an industry dispute in late December 2023. On December 11, The Wild Eight's Steam page was updated to revert the developer credit back to "Eight Points," the studio's original name before it rebranded as Fntastic. The following day, publisher HypeTrain Digital issued a public statement explaining the change. HypeTrain clarified that they had terminated all business relationships with the developer back in 2017, meaning they no longer maintained an active partnership. The publisher stated that the listing correction was made specifically to prevent a review bomb targeting Fntastic's newest title, The Day Before. By restoring the old developer name, HypeTrain aimed to create a clear separation between the two entities on the storefront, shielding their other projects from any negative attention directed at Fntastic's current release. The incident highlighted how publisher-developer relationships can fracture years after a game's launch, and how a single Steam listing entry can become a flashpoint in the broader gaming industry.