Weird West Review | Screen Rant
The evocative setting of the Wild West is one that is perhaps underused in video games. While there are standouts like the Red Dead Redemption games or classic shooters like Sunset Riders and Wild Guns, all too often games set in the Wild West fail to resonate entirely with audiences. This is something that Weird West is looking to fix, with developer Wolfeye Studios taking a supernatural lens to the Wild West setting.
Weird West sits within a longstanding subgenre in its own right, where dark fantasy and Wild West tropes align, and the game's visuals even emulate the look of pulp comics like DC's Weird Western Tales. The world of Weird West is one of black magic, cryptid predators, and greedy factions vying for control of a harsh landscape. It's here where five people wake up to mysterious, glowing brands on their necks, and these five must try and find out the truth behind the brands alongside fighting their own personal battles.
At first glance Weird West may look like one of the isometric CRPGs of old, but it plays in a very different way. Wolfeye Studios was formed by Arcane Studio veterans Raphael Colantonio and Julien Roby, and the immersive sim pedigree here is clear for all to see. In spite of its isometric viewpoint, this is a game that is less about levelling or role-playing and more about the player's ability to understand and manipulate each situation based on their character's abilities and the environment around them.
Even so, Weird West does build upon some of the cornerstones of early CRPGs here. The player will come across random events on the map as they travel, akin games like Fallout and Baldur’s Gate. This gives a spontaneity to the game world, emphasizes how dangerous it is, and also gives the player a sense of the world being much larger than its individual locations. Some of the random encounters are also an absolute joy to come across, such as regular visits from a witch that gives the player cryptic and humorous messages about their fate.
This fate takes the story goes into strange places, even more so than some other weird Western tales. Over the course of the game the player will become a cursed pigman tasked with destroying a magic tree that eats souls, a messianic werewolf trying to save his people from being hunted to extinction, and a spiritualist who delves into dream worlds that match the aesthetic of Twin Peaks. The most well-rounded arc of the bunch is that of Across Rivers, a hunter from the fictional Lost Fire Nation, whose story was developed an Anishinaabe writer and steers clear of the tropes of indigenous populations being inscrutable, mystical cultures.
There are also some interesting side quests that help expand the sense of Weird West of being a living, breathing place. Some of the highlights are a town being plagued by bad dreams and strange deaths, being able to talk to ghosts and pick up quests to help them find closure, and helping a pigman break a curse that means he can only speak in rhyme. There are also more traditional quests for a game of this setting, such as bounties to collect, but Weird West is at its best when it gets strange with it.
From a gameplay perspective, Weird West is combat-centric. Like other immersive sims the player is given some flexibility in terms of how they approach each challenge with the ability for things to switch on a dime; there’s a frenetic feel whenever stealth options fail, for instance, particularly with supernatural enemies that can wipe out the player's health very quickly. As such Weird West asks to player to put an emphasis on being aware of their surroundings, as being able to ignite an oil lamp or kick over a toxic barrel can make all the difference, while things like shifting weather impact on exactly what the player can successfully interact with.
Something that helps is to lean into each character's speciality, giving each of the five chapters a slightly different feel. Bounty hunter Jane Bell is best with rifles and pistols, pig man Cl’ens Qui’g prefers a full-on assault with melee and shotguns, while Across Rivers hints towards a bow and stealth build. Along the way the player also picks up members of their posse, and although these characters don't have much by way of character - another similarity to the first Fallout - their little bits of dialogue add a bit of life to the game. The player can even recruit protagonists from previous chapters if they so choose.
With all that said, Weird West isn't perfect, and most of its issues are technical in nature. A lot of these revolve around the player's posse, with odd pathfinding, team members disappearing between locations, and not attacking certain enemies, which can make the game frustrating on harder difficulties. It's nothing game-breaking, though, and outside of this the other issues are mainly things like the odd graphical glitch or strange NPC reactions to player decisions.
Weird West is a refreshing, lean and mean immersive sim. Its supernatural Wild West is a delight to explore, and is at its very best when it gets as strange as it possibly can, while the minute-to-minute combat is an awful lot of fun. Some of its bugs may get in the way, and those expecting deep interpersonal relationships with posse members will find it wanting, but as a mechanic-driven immersive experience it is hard to put down.
Weird West releases today, March 31, 2022 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Screen Rant was provided with a PS4 download code for the purposes of this review.