Weird west release date7/6/2023 ![]() It’s stuff we know and have done before, and it’s baked into the game in such a way that as soon as you know how it works, it becomes second nature. Smelt them and visit the blacksmith and voila, a common becomes a green, and then a green becomes a blue and so on. These can be looted from enemies and caches, or mined out in the world. You get weapons which can be upgraded, but you upgrade them through collection of precious metals. See, on top of being an immersive sim, that is also best described as a survival-lite Western, that is also an arcane-fueled RPG, Weird West is a game about self-management. "It’s stuff we know and have done before, and it’s baked into the game in such a way that as soon as you know how it works, it becomes second nature.” The enemies are smart, and the systems are harsh when it all aligns against you, but there’s backup here, and it comes in the form of traditional gaming stuff. Failure in any given instance will fall squarely on you, because it’s not like the game hasn’t given you all you need all the tools to get the job done. And as a game similar to that, it’s never against you. It has a little bit of Desperados about it in this way, perhaps more so because of the setting, but it’s where my mind has gone a handful of times. WolfEye encourages you in the very early throes of the game to save before big encounters, just so you can experiment with its systems and witness the game’s dynamic nature and figure out how best to use that to your advantage. And when you start recognising that, you’ll start to play with it in fun and unique ways. The game is full of common sense design principles centred around form and function. If there’s oil on the ground and it’s struck by flame… well, you can guess the rest. If it rains, things get wet, and cavities fill with water. This means there’s less activity in a civilised place when the sun has set. People go to sleep at night, and they work during the day. The game does an incredible job of having a functioning world with believable systems. In this frame of mind, you can cast your suspension of disbelief first at the believable. Where solutions aren’t canned or locked to a single path, and how you tend to achieve your required outcome is driven by a dynamism and reactive game-world wrought with unintended consequences.Īt its heart, Weird West is still very much a Western. "Where solutions aren’t canned or locked to a single path, and how you tend to achieve your required outcome is driven by a dynamism and reactive game-world.”Īnd it’s at “choice” we’ll dissect this game proper, because Weird West is something of a potpourri of ideas and mechanics, all typically tied to the “Immersive Sim” genre of games - where systems and open-ended gameplay afford players a greater sense of agency over their goals and objectives. It’s a place where you can help a fellow in need, or bury him deep beneath snakes - the choice is yours. All and more are part of the functioning and accepted makeup of the world of the “West” - a place of desperation and despair, but also one of hope and faith. Shapeshifters and ghosts, wraiths and zombies and sirens and… pigmen. ![]() It plays with concepts of the unseen and the grotesque, the macabre and the dazzling. It is mystic and dark, and brooding and horrific. Weird West, from WolfEye Studios - the developer’s debut game - is a Weird Western that embodies the very concept of the subgenre. Where a rustler no longer threatens just your cattle, but also your life because they might also be a werewolf. It’s where the Wild West becomes more - a sentiment amplified by the idea that all of a sudden “wild” is no longer an apt adjective to describe the unrestrained nature of a thing. ![]() ![]() We’ve spoken at length already about the Weird Western all of the above on eldritch steroids. The Wild West, imagined, is a thing of gritty majesty a place of limitless potential for tales tall, of every kind. Its proprietised peaks and troughs, where soft men are replaced by hard men*, where pearl white sets, perfectly curated and cleaned and presented, are replaced by bullet-soaked saloons, splintered and cobbled, sat in the middle of murderous dustbowls, make for as good a storytelling device as any train robbery gone awry, or maddened tale of revenge. From fully pressed evening wear buttoned to the last, to dusted, moth-feasted jackets, yeller teeth, and a look of whiskey-soaked skin you can *almost* taste through the screen textured and tangible, glistening as beads of sweat. ![]() I love its portrayal over time and how it went from Wayne-starred near-musicals colourful and shiny and soft-lensed, to the grime-layered, unshaven exploits of ronin-turned-gun-slinger types rousting about with nary a name. I love the Wild West as a romanaticised genre. ![]()
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