You can always beat the wolves, right? They're usually the next rung up from rats; even at their very hardest, they're maybe the fourth distinct creature thing a trainee adventurer has to slash into giblets on their way to bigger and better things. These grey, hairy training wheels might do a bit of snarling, a few mild biteroonies, but they won't ever kill you. That's not what wolves do.
Wartales, the next game from Northgard devs Shiro Games (which lands in early access soonish), didn't get the memo. Just twenty minutes into this sombre, map-wandering mercenary adventure, I ran into a crew of the old growly-howlies, and got killed to pieces. My second run, at least, left me with one survivor. But they were soon ruined financially by the burden of treating their wounds and repairing their mangled armour, and eventually met their end in a muddy ditch, at the end of a bandit's longsword. This game, folks, is not messing about.