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Press release:
London, UK – [23 July, 2026] – The team behind Night Zookeeper today announced Wilds – Night Zookeeper, a new character creation and collection game where players draw their own original characters, transform them into playable 3D creatures, and use them to explore, customise, collect and help shape an evolving world. Wilds – Night Zookeeper is releasing on PC & Mobile later this year.

Wilds is built around one simple idea, that players should not just choose from creatures someone else has made, they should be able to create their own.

In Wilds, a drawing can become a banana hedgehog, a turtle car, a three-eyed dragon, a disco llama, or something no one else has ever imagined before. Once created, each Wild is brought into the game as a 3D character with its own look, abilities, attacks and personality.

Set in the magical universe of Night Zookeeper, Wilds challenges players to help rebuild a world where imagination has been drained away. Players create and collect Wilds, customise their abilities, build out their spaces, take on strange challenges, and fight back against the grey, shadowy Voids that threaten to erase creativity from the Night Zoo.

Rather than treating user-generated content as decoration, Wilds – Night Zookeeper is built around it. Player-made Wilds can be collected by others, while community ideas have the potential to inspire future creatures, items, attacks, locations and game features.

“Wilds is about taking the feeling of drawing a character as a kid and asking what would happen if that character could come to life in the game,” said Josh Davidson at Night Zookeeper.

“We want players to author the creatures,share ideas and help shape the identity of the world itself from day one.”

The game builds on more than 15 years of Night Zookeeper’s work with children and creativity. The BAFTA-nominated team has helped more than 1 million children create stories and characters, with over 1 billion words written through its platform. The wider Night Zookeeper universe has also expanded into books, an animated series and a global creative community shaped by children’s ideas.

While Wilds by Night Zookeeper is welcoming for younger players and families, it is not a lightweight educational product. Under the hood is a creature creation and customisation game built around experimentation, collection, ability loadouts and player expression.

For parents, Wilds offers a safe, creative alternative to open-ended online platforms. It’s a game children will actually want to play, made by a team with a long track record in positive digital spaces, with a focus on creation over consumption and no live chat.

Players can wishlist the game on Steam now and sign up for news, updates and Alpha playtest opportunities at wildsgame.com.
Key Features

Draw Your Own Wilds – Design original creatures and watch them come to life as playable 3D characters.

Author, Don’t Assemble – Invent creatures from scratch rather than combining preset parts.

Creature Collection With Personal Meaning – Collect Wilds created by other players and build a roster of strange, funny and powerful community-made characters.

Strategic Customisation – Experiment with abilities, attacks and loadouts to make each Wild useful in different challenges.

A World Built With The Community – Player ideas can inspire future items, outfits, creatures, locations, attacks and features.

Safe Creative Play – Made by the BAFTA-nominated creators of Night Zookeeper, Wilds is designed as a safe creative space with no live chat.

About Wilds by Night Zookeeper

Wilds by Night Zookeeper is a character creation and collection game where players draw their own characters, bring them to life in 3D, customise their abilities and use them inside a magical world shaped by imagination.

Set in the universe of Night Zookeeper, Wilds is built around authorship, collection, creative identity and community-driven world-building.

About Night Zookeeper

Night Zookeeper is a BAFTA-nominated creative learning company and storytelling universe that helps children fall in love with reading, writing and drawing. Through its safe digital platform, books, animated series and creative projects, Night Zookeeper has supported more than 1 million children worldwide and inspired over 1 billion words written by young creators.