{"id":470965,"date":"2026-02-15T23:48:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T23:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/470965\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T23:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T23:48:16","slug":"hundreds-of-thousands-pretend-theyre-yellowstone-wolves-in-online-game-wolfquest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/470965\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds Of Thousands Pretend They’re Yellowstone Wolves In Online Game \u2018WolfQuest\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

WolfQuest isn\u2019t just for entertainment, it\u2019s meant to be educational and realistic, the game\u2019s producer, Dave Schaller of St. Paul, Minnesota, told Cowboy State Daily.<\/p>\n

Some of the country\u2019s top wolf biologists were consulted during game development.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The game has about 150,000 to 200,000 players worldwide who can spend years developing their wolf characters while trying to survive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting life. There\u2019s hunting, and there\u2019s fighting with other wolves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"WolfQuestWolfQuest is a computer game in which people create their own wolf characters in a virtual Yellowstone National Park and try to find prey while avoiding fights with other wolves or being shot by hunters. (Courtesy Dave Schaller\/eduweb Inc.)\"WolfQuestWolfQuest is a computer game in which people create their own wolf characters in a virtual Yellowstone National Park and try to find prey while avoiding fights with other wolves or being shot by hunters. (Courtesy Dave Schaller\/eduweb Inc.)\"WolfQuestWolfQuest is a computer game in which people create their own wolf characters in a virtual Yellowstone National Park and try to find prey while avoiding fights with other wolves or being shot by hunters. (Courtesy Dave Schaller\/eduweb Inc.)Arrow leftArrow rightFade To Black<\/p>\n

Players whose wolves survive the game\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen your wolf reaches age 8, it becomes an elder wolf,\u201d\u00a0Schaller said. “It gets special status.”<\/p>\n

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 \u201celder\u201d is true to life.<\/p>\n

However, if a player\u2019s wolf reaches that age there are cues including \u201cpremonition of death dreams\u201d that the wolf isn\u2019t long for the virtual world, he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first major loss was one of my very first player wolves, Tyche, who had a peaceful death by old age,\u201d\u00a0she said. “It\u2019s a little embarrassing to admit, but I cried when I watched\u00a0the screen fade to black.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying through seven in-game years and developing a story for her in my mind as I played, really created quite an attachment.”<\/p>\n

Kyrie chose a dignified death for her wolf.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I had forewarning she was going to die, I had intentionally found a scenic spot in the game map to let her pass away,\u201d\u00a0she said. “I couldn’t fathom the idea of just letting her spend her final moments in a random patch of dirt and trees.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Shots Out Of The Blue\u2019<\/p>\n

In the game, players who aren\u2019t careful can stray beyond the park\u2019s northern boundary and into Montana, where they can be shot by hunters, Schaller said.<\/p>\n

Those deaths are sudden and unexpected, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of terrible gameplay \u2014 you have no control over it. It\u2019s just shots out of the blue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, that\u2019s part of the game reflecting what life, and death, are really like for Yellowstone wolves, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to recognize that this threat (being shot by hunters) has become greater and greater,\u201d Schaller said.<\/p>\n

Players start with wolves that are about age 2, just reaching the age of independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to learn how to hunt elk and how to search for a mate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"WolfQuestWolfQuest is a computer game in which people create their own wolf characters in a virtual Yellowstone National Park and try to find prey while avoiding fights with other wolves or being shot by hunters. (Courtesy Dave Schaller\/eduweb Inc.)\"WolfQuestWolfQuest is a computer game in which people create their own wolf characters in a virtual Yellowstone National Park and try to find prey while avoiding fights with other wolves or being shot by hunters. (Courtesy Dave Schaller\/eduweb Inc.)\"WolfQuestWolfQuest is a computer game in which people create their own wolf characters in a virtual Yellowstone National Park and try to find prey while avoiding fights with other wolves or being shot by hunters. (Courtesy Dave Schaller\/eduweb Inc.)Arrow leftArrow rightEducational Value<\/p>\n

WolfQuest isn\u2019t a new game. Schaller first developed it more than 20 years ago and it\u2019s gone through several upgrades.<\/p>\n

The current version was developed about eight years ago and is the most popular yet, Schaller said.<\/p>\n

Player Kaylee Steadham of North Carolina told Cowboy State Daily that she became fascinated by WolfQuest while watching videos of gameplay on YouTube.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got into WolfQuest before I was even playing it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s been playing since 2015, and said she\u2019s learned much about wolves in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is true that wolves come after livestock in different parts of the country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

However, as she sees it, \u201cthey aren\u2019t mindless killers, these are actual animals with reasons for their behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biologist Doug Smith, who led the wolf program in Yellowstone National Park for nearly three decades, provided some advice for the game\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

He told Cowboy State Daily that he appreciates the game\u2019s educational value.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good game,\u201d\u00a0he said. “It gets people to pay attention while having fun.”<\/p>\n

It also addresses the \u201clong-term problem\u201d of getting people interested in wildlife ecology, Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you get people interested and engaged? This is a good way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI am now in my 20s, going to college for natural resources, volunteering at the International Wolf Center, and still playing \u2014 plus testing \u2014 the game,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Trips To Yellowstone<\/p>\n

Steadham hasn\u2019t been to Yellowstone, but playing WolfQuest has made her want to.<\/p>\n

She enjoys the various in-game vocalizations of the wolves, made from recordings of actual wolves. And she\u2019d love to hear the real thing someday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely on my bucket list,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Kyrie\/CryptidGoat said the game prompted a trip to Yellowstone with her parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Players of the online game WolfQuest virtually put themselves in the place of Yellowstone wolves, sometimes becoming so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-470965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}