Written by Tanner Banks, March 20, 2016, at 6:00 p.m.
“Strip the flesh! Salt the wound!” That is a common sound you hear on the Twitch channel ColdWolf1989. Here you’ll commonly see Matt, the leader of the Wolfpack, grinding his way to the top in Borderlands 2. And when he gets going, he’s hard to stop. Because when he plays, he doesn’t die. Ever. Matt specializes in “One Life to Live” playthroughs, meaning the second he dies… He’s done. He goes back to the main menu and deletes the file entirely. So regardless of whether he’s just started, finishing Ultimate Vault Hunter, or he just so happened to sneeze and falls of a cliff, it’s perfection or nothing.
Matt has always been a gamer. The first game he really got into as a kid was Tetris on the original Gameboy. As he put it he was “[…] cracked out on Tetris. I’d start freaking out when the batteries were low and ask Dad where the remotes were.” Much like our last SSBD featured streamer, Matt is a lover of the Final Fantasy series, with FF: XII holding a special place in his heart. (And several 100+ hour playthroughs.) In fact, Matt loves every Final Fantasy game… except 13, which is understandable.
Today he resides with his longtime girlfriend and their two cats, Billy, a one-eyed Siamese, and Marlowe a three-year-old cat named after the famous 30’s detective Philip Marlowe. A self-professed lover of hard-boiled gumshoes and former Magic: The Gathering player, Matt’s had his feet firmly planted in the land of the nerdy. But that doesn’t mean the former Washington State Cougar doesn’t stay active. A regular on the diamond, he’s always looking to join a fall baseball league.
As for his stream, he likes to keep things chill. Or rather… cold. The name comes from his old email from his time as a freshman in high school, which has stuck with him through the years. Taking part in the 365 challenge, Matt has streamed every day since January 1st, with the goal to do so for the entire year. Last year he was making good progress, but moving forced him to to quit and eventually go on a nine-month hiatus.
When streaming Matt’s usually grinding out on Borderlands, as mentioned before. But don’t let that fool you, he’s beaten every Assassin’s Creed worth mentioning, several Naruto Ninja Storm games, and, of course, the Borderlands games. Next up to bat are Until Dawn, Evil Within (which will be done for the spooky month of October), Witcher 3, and Metal Gear Solid V. Talk about a tall order. Every time a new game pops up that he wants to beat, he jots it down in his little black book of unbeaten games, to be vanquished in the future.
As of this article, he stands at about 1,500 followers, which is impressive because he was right at a thousand about a month ago. He attributes his recent growth to the Borderlands community being so welcoming and friendly. While I absolutely think that has a role in it, I think he’s being humble about things, as well. The ColdWolf channel is built to be a place for people to relax and unwind from the real world for a little bit. Any time someone has a question for Matt, he always makes sure to answer to the best of his abilities.
As for the always controversial question of donations, he sees it as nothing more than an option for people. While he won’t refuse someone’s generosity to help the channel. (100 percent of all donations go towards the stream.) Matt says, “Their time is worth more to me than their money.” However, longtime moderator Xylym_pilot has donated over $100 and a very nice headset, which Matt is extremely thankful for.
His moderator team has been around the channel for a long time, as well. Back when he was first starting his stream with Diablo III, he met his moderators through the general community and all this time later they’re still helping out. A testament to their time spent on the streams are the ridiculous amount of wolfcash they have in the bank. Like MattyP89’s beard points, wolfcash works in a similar fashion, however you can use it to join in a game, request a drunk stream, or in a recent case, a 24-hour stream. Marathoning is nothing new for Matt, with most streams averaging about seven hours in length.
When it’s all said and done, Matt hopes that he’ll have a good community built around good times as his Twitch legacy (and maybe getting partnered). Outside of streams, Matt’s looking to get his Master’s and PhD towards a tenure track in higher education. But before he can teach these young minds, he needs to go teach some bandits not to fuck with a roided-out, dual-wielding Latino space dwarf.
