Hundreds Of Thousands Pretend They're Yellowstone Wolves In Online Game ‘WolfQuest’

Players of the online game WolfQuest virtually put themselves in the place of Yellowstone wolves, sometimes becoming so immersed in the experience that they cry when their wolf character dies.

WolfQuest isn’t just for entertainment, it’s meant to be educational and realistic, the game’s producer, Dave Schaller of St. Paul, Minnesota, told Cowboy State Daily.

Some of the country’s top wolf biologists were consulted during game development.

Schaller and other team members from the Eduweb Inc. company travel to Yellowstone National Park every other year to get the lay of the land and make sure their virtual Yellowstone is as close as possible to the real thing.

The game has about 150,000 to 200,000 players worldwide who can spend years developing their wolf characters while trying to survive.

“It’s an exciting life. There’s hunting, and there’s fighting with other wolves,” he said.

Fade To Black

Players whose wolves survive the game’s various hazards, including straying outside the park and getting shot by hunters, must face the reality that their virtual wolf will eventually die of old age.

“When your wolf reaches age 8, it becomes an elder wolf,” Schaller said. "It gets special status."

Yellowstone wolves typically live about four to five years. The longest-lived wolves there have made it to about age 12. So age 8 being “elder” is true to life.

However, if a player’s wolf reaches that age there are cues including “premonition of death dreams” that the wolf isn’t long for the virtual world, he said.

A WolfQuest player from Minnesota, who wanted to be identified only by her first name and her player name Kyrie or CryptidGoat, told Cowboy State Daily that it was hard to lose a wolf.

“The first major loss was one of my very first player wolves, Tyche, who had a peaceful death by old age,” she said. "It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I cried when I watched the screen fade to black.

“Playing through seven in-game years and developing a story for her in my mind as I played, really created quite an attachment."

Kyrie chose a dignified death for her wolf.

“Since I had forewarning she was going to die, I had intentionally found a scenic spot in the game map to let her pass away,” she said. "I couldn't fathom the idea of just letting her spend her final moments in a random patch of dirt and trees.”

‘Shots Out Of The Blue’

In the game, players who aren’t careful can stray beyond the park’s northern boundary and into Montana, where they can be shot by hunters, Schaller said.

Those deaths are sudden and unexpected, he said.

“It’s kind of terrible gameplay — you have no control over it. It’s just shots out of the blue,” he said.

However, that’s part of the game reflecting what life, and death, are really like for Yellowstone wolves, he said.

“We wanted to recognize that this threat (being shot by hunters) has become greater and greater,” Schaller said.

Players start with wolves that are about age 2, just reaching the age of independence.

“You have to learn how to hunt elk and how to search for a mate,” he said.

Players who succeed at those tasks can form wolf packs. So, when their main wolf dies, they can replace it with one of its offspring or another pack member.

Educational Value

WolfQuest isn’t a new game. Schaller first developed it more than 20 years ago and it’s gone through several upgrades.

The current version was developed about eight years ago and is the most popular yet, Schaller said.

Player Kaylee Steadham of North Carolina told Cowboy State Daily that she became fascinated by WolfQuest while watching videos of gameplay on YouTube.

“I got into WolfQuest before I was even playing it,” she said.

She’s been playing since 2015, and said she’s learned much about wolves in the process.

“It is true that wolves come after livestock in different parts of the country,” she said.

However, as she sees it, “they aren’t mindless killers, these are actual animals with reasons for their behaviors.”

Biologist Doug Smith, who led the wolf program in Yellowstone National Park for nearly three decades, provided some advice for the game’s development.

He told Cowboy State Daily that he appreciates the game’s educational value.

“It’s a good game,” he said. "It gets people to pay attention while having fun."

It also addresses the “long-term problem” of getting people interested in wildlife ecology, Smith said.

“How do you get people interested and engaged? This is a good way,” he said.

Kyrie/CryptidGoat said she started playing WolfQuest as an elementary school student around 2010, and it helped develop her interest in wolf biology.

“I am now in my 20s, going to college for natural resources, volunteering at the International Wolf Center, and still playing — plus testing — the game,” she said.

Trips To Yellowstone

Steadham hasn’t been to Yellowstone, but playing WolfQuest has made her want to.

She enjoys the various in-game vocalizations of the wolves, made from recordings of actual wolves. And she’d love to hear the real thing someday.

“It’s definitely on my bucket list,” she said.

Kyrie/CryptidGoat said the game prompted a trip to Yellowstone with her parents.

“My middle-school obsession with WolfQuest was definitely part of what helped bribe my parents into taking us on a family road trip to Yellowstone when I was around 13 years old,” she said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.