Wilderings: The Lost Spring Beta Sign-Ups Now Open

Wilderings: The Lost Spring wants you to make friends with spirits and then go fix a broken world with them. That's the pitch, and it's a good one. The game is a creature-collecting roguelite that mixes fast action with open-world exploration, and its beta is now taking sign-ups.

What caught my eye is who is behind it. Wilderings comes from Herobeat, the studio that made Endling and won a BAFTA for it. For anyone outside the UK, BAFTA is the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, whose game awards are among the bigger honors in the industry. That pedigree doesn't guarantee anything, but it does make this one worth a closer look.

A Land Gone Sour

You play as Abi, and your job is to heal a land that has been corrupted. The way you do that is called rewilding. You push into the sick parts of the map, clean them up and bring the Springs back online. Reactivating those Springs looks like the main thread that ties each outing together.

Getting around seems to be half the fun. Abi can glide, grapple and run along walls as she moves through the corrupted biomes. That's a fairly loaded movement kit for a roguelite, a genre that often keeps you on foot and in tight rooms. Here the open-world angle suggests more room to roam between fights.

Spirits on Your Side

The creatures you collect are called Hântu, and they're described as mystical beings. You don't catch them so much as rescue them. Once saved, they join you in battle.

There's a care element too. You can feed your Hântu and level them up, and the way you raise them shapes how you fight. So two players could end up with pretty different combat styles depending on which spirits they lean on and how they grow them. I like that idea. It gives the collecting part a reason to exist beyond filling out a list.

Bosses, Plants and a Ship in the Sky

The big fights are against what Herobeat calls Tormented Bosses. These come in multiple phases, so expect them to change things up as the battle goes on.

Between runs, you head back to a base on a skyship. This is where the quieter side of the game shows up. You grow plants there, and those plants hand out permanent buffs. It's a gardening loop that feeds directly back into the action, which is a neat fit for a game that's all about bringing nature back.

No Two Runs Alike

As a roguelite, Wilderings is built around repeat attempts. Enemies are randomized and the rewards shift from run to run, so you won't be walking the same path every time. Losing isn't a dead end either. Each defeat leads to stronger upgrades, which should take some of the sting out of a bad run.

If that sounds like your thing, you can request access to the beta through the game's sign-up page. It sits alongside a busy stretch of beta calls we've been tracking, from Durga: The Lionhearted to plenty of smaller projects.

Our Take

Wilderings looks like it's trying to bridge two crowds. On one side, there's the action roguelite player who wants tough bosses and runs that feel different each time. On the other, there's the more relaxed player who enjoys raising creatures and tending a garden between outings. The skyship plants and the feeding of Hântu point toward that softer side, even if the core is clearly combat.

This blend isn't brand new. Games like Moonlighter 2 have shown there's an audience for roguelites with a homey base to return to. What could set Wilderings apart is the healing theme and the traversal.

It is worth watching whether the beta shows how much the open world really opens up, and whether the creature leveling adds real depth or stays light. Herobeat's track record suggests the presentation will get attention, but the beta should be the first real test of how it all plays.