I stand on a desk in the Unity office in Copenhagen, with fellow media members and two of the 10 Chambers team. Placed on the table is a blueprint of a building strewn with pictures of Keepore. We are deliberating on how to proceed with future robberies. Should we split or stick? Do you want to move the building clockwise or counterclockwise? Do you want to operate the floor or underneath? I feel like I can be part of a real robbery and this is the essence of Wolf’s.
Set in the fictional cyberpunk Midway City, Wolf Nest tells the story of a dystopian future where technological advances brought about a full corporate war. Technology and biology combine to create the safest data protection of all time. This is the human brain that cannot be penetrated or replicated by AI and can be accessed via a dreamlike “dive.” Nowadays, businesses hire career criminals like themselves, break into conflicting businesses, perform dives, steal valuable information. This is a novel set-up and an impressive vision that could be a realistic future, but that’s not the only thing that sets the Wolf Den apart in the Heist FPS genre.
There’s a famous Dane Cook joke that says, “If you could choose between sex or this other thing, anyone would want to be part of a robbery.” I think this is a valid claim, man, girl, or otherwise. And so is the team behind the Den of Wolves. In an interview with Simon Vikland, co-founder of Room 10 and story director, he told me that the joke had partially inspired him and other Ex Overkill, former Starbize developers to enter the robbery genre starting with paydays 1 and 2.
But rather than payday, Den of Wolves aims to provide a complete experience of planning and carrying out robberies. So I’m here, looking at these plans, running around the arrows on the page with red markers. Most other HEIST games start in front of your main target, using everything you need at your disposal. In contrast, just like the GTA 5, Den of Wolves is working to complete a dedicated preparation mission that determines which equipment they have access to and how to ultimately approach the robbery.
For our preparation mission, my team and I work to collect attack drones. This in itself is a mini robber. We break into a guarded building and secretly begin until security finds one of the crew. Then it’s a complete shootout until we reach the safe containing the prize money. The full chaos continues as the enemy descends from every angle, but thanks to our future technology, the vast Arsenal and the placement of my expert Prox mine, we bring it to life. This takes just 10 minutes and all the preparation missions are equally pimples.
Other preparation missions include explosives, getting tools, building blueprints, or Intel. I was able to see one example of preparation, but it appears that Den of Wolves has always got a key decision, from the idea of a robbery to its conclusion.
You can choose your own path, but you’re also involved in a set storyline that runs across a series of urban districts. The story is somewhat predicted and the main robbery targets are pre-determined, but how you get there is up to you.
For our major robbers, we infiltrate the target buildings under the guise of delivery people dropping precious blueprints. This allows you to walk to the right of the main entrance. I placed the drones I collected in the preparation mission in the bag and used them to attack security. If you want to do something different, for example, by going through a wall, instead choose a prep mission to collect explosives and blueprints from invading buildings.
Apart from the immersion of being involved in all aspects of robbery, this process has another additional benefit. “On payday, you’ll spawn without a plan,” explains Robin Bjorkell, manager of 10 Chambers Comms. “While someone climbs the fire escape to get on the roof, someone approaches a burning gun. The third is looking for an entrance through the alley behind. And you’re in the fourth game where you ask, ‘How are you doing this?’ ” “If you choose to go through the roof, for example, then that approach is only available.”
Thanks to IRL Prep, we work seamlessly as a team, moving clockwise between safes as we search for three passkeys. This preliminary phase of bl searching on top of the blueprint is currently not included in the pre-alpha version of the game, but it is said that something similar will be added before its release.
PassKeys unlocks the chamber containing the target. Each key is hidden in one of seven locked safes. You may need to access most of them. So I planned the road ahead of time. Naturally, once the bullet flies and starts, it is difficult to carry out the plan.
Among our tools are proximity mines and advanced electronic shields, and you should not let out a bullet, but somehow they work from both directions, but I don’t doubt. These shields are essential when breaking into the safe and keep us from sitting on the duck.
There are also two spider drills, but like most of the wolf den, we were able to gather further by prioritizing them during the preparation mission. This means that you can only unlock two safes at a time. Again, this was planned during the PREP. Two of the teams hack into the nearest safe, while the other pair heads towards the window and plant explosives for escape.
All along, the fifth AI team member will feed us remotely. Being in Comms can be confusing, but effective communication is essential. There are no mini maps, so instead your ear comrades will drop the waypoints to guide you. It also tells you when, for example, a spider drill stops working and needs to be rebooted. This direction is essential when matchmaking with randomness. And the combination of planning and Inter elements makes it accessible to those who can’t team up with a dedicated team.
Finally, there is the diving itself. Once we’ve collected the keys and collected the valuable booty we can get, we head to the third floor to unlock the main safe. Again, I have planned all of this. However, unlocking the central vault reveals a mini-boss that could not be explained, attracting new waves of enemies as well. After a fierce gunfight, we head back downstairs.
The target is hung in a shining red container, and when locked in for diving, it is transported to another dimension. The dive varies by target, but this takes us to a Parcourt run with a distorted mixed severity. Fortunately, only one person on the team needs to make it for the dive to be successful. It’s time to complete a series of dives and then surviving the enemy’s onslaught, then extract. The 30-40 minute chaos is over. You are all planning on winning a big buck before moving on to your next job.
Despite only seeing fragments of wolves’ nest in pre-Alpha builds, I left feeling this would be a suitable candidate for the robbery game crown. Just like our thorough prep work, all the details have been come up and I look forward to seeing other stories and dives await me in the full release.
For now, take a look at the list of other PC games from 2025 onwards.
