Weird West is an upcoming immersive sim from developer WolfEye Studios and publisher Devolver Digital. The team promises a dark fantasy reimagining of the Wild West where lawmen and gunslingers share the frontier with fantasy creatures.
The game is slated to release in January 2022. We had a chance to dive into the Weird West for a few hours to see what kind of life can be achieved in this unforgiving land. After all, there can be no easy decisions when each side is playing by their own rules and their own peculiar motives.
Are you ready to leave your mark?
Weird West is a Wild West-themed dark action RPG that tasks players with uncovering many secrets of this world. WolfEye Studios opted for the isometric perspective in the game instead of their usual first-person point of view. Therefore the game encourages thoughtful, careful ways of approaching encounters.
For example, instead of open firefighting, you are better off tracking down the patrolmen and sentries separately, quietly killing and hiding the bodies in the nearby bushes so as to not trigger the alarm.
Players will have to get through the stories of five separate heroes – after you are done with a particular campaign, you can encounter that hero in the game. The decisions made during your playthrough will affect their fate and, in turn, the fates of the other four characters.
In Weird West, each journey is unique and created entirely by yourself – these stories feature high stakes with the world reacting to your actions so your every decision has weight. Get a squad of misfits together or set out solo to discover the mysteries of this world – the decision is yours.
Weird West puts a lot of importance on planning and tactics. If you wish, you can attempt to look for NPCs that will join your character’s squad. It will make certain missions easier to complete. However, allies cannot be directly controlled and will be acting on their own.
Your protagonist will resurrect after death, but the companions (if they are recruited) will not return if you don’t manage to help them in time.
Theft and murder will also see your character getting proper punishment – such actions can’t simply be “canceled” by loading an earlier save, so act accordingly!
The developers didn’t want to over-complicate the system, and the characters feature the bare minimum of necessary characteristics. Each of the five heroes has their own set of skills available, four based on your class and a few more for each type of weaponry.
Speaking of weaponry, the game features 5 main types: revolvers, shotguns, rifles, bows and knives. I liked revolvers and rifles most of all due to their extensive ammunition supply and the general ease of use.
The game also features a “smart aim” system: when the player sets the direction for the shot by turning the character, the cursor automatically shows the targets you can shoot. You can also set buildings (and your enemies!) on fire or, alternatively, collect water into a bucket to extinguish the flame.
If you come across a locked door, you can either look around for the key, attempt to open it with lockpicking or simply blow it up with a dynamite stick.
The game features a day/night cycle that affects the visibility, behavior, and number of enemies. You will have to take into account the weather, as well: for example, you can get caught in a storm or your dynamite will refuse to explode during a rain since it would get wet.
The world of the game consists of separate locations that will be gradually opening up as you progress the story. While traveling, players can run into random encounters, merchants or even some pretty mysterious characters.
Weird West features text dialogues that give you a choice between multiple answers. Let me remind you that your choices and actions affect the plot and the world of the game! Read the dialogues carefully and think about what the consequences might be like in advance.
At the moment, the game has certain flaws, in particular, a scattering of bugs and the behavior of in-game settings. Unfortunately, when you re-enter the game the settings revert to the default state and force you to repeatedly adjust things like the volume of the music.
Pros:
- Pleasant gameplay loop
- The plot changes from the actions of players
- Variety of heroes
Cons:
- Bugs
- Settings switching back to default
