Need to know
What is it? A top-down immersive sim set in the Weird West—a Wild West full of supernatural monsters.
Release date March 31, 2022
Expect to pay $40/£31
Developer WolfEye Studios
Publisher Devolver Digital
Reviewed on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, GeForce RTX 2060
Multiplayer? No
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I’ve lived many lives as I’ve travelled around the Weird West. Bounty hunter, werewolf, pigman—that was a memorable one. And in every body I made the West a little better, or a little worse. As much as it’s a game about constant micro decision-making—stealth or direct assault; Molotov cocktail and oil barrel or revolver and John Woo slow-mo dive—Weird West is just as concerned with the bigger picture as other immersive sims, including Dishonored and Prey.
That bigger picture begins in a familiar place: with a bounty hunter coming out of retirement to locate her kidnapped husband. For the first few hours, I was tangling with outlaws in typical Wild West fashion and wondering where all the weirdness was. You buy supplies in towns, and pick up bounties before heading out, traversing an open world map stuffed with abandoned mines, ghost towns, and isolated homesteads. More often than not, these locations are filled with enemies you can either sneak past or fill with lead, via fast-paced, top-down combat.
(Image credit: Devolver Digital)
In truth, one town is much like any other, so you’ll hardly miss one if it falls to ruin, but the possibility is exciting—the thought that almost anyone can be killed, and the game will roll with it. I tested this at one point, when a story ally laid an ambush for me, attacking in a scripted event on the road to an objective. I died several times trying to win the ensuing battle—until I reloaded an earlier save and killed the ally before she could turn on me. The ambush still happened, but my attackers were now a woman short.
I’m sure there will be better examples once Weird West is out in the wild, and I keenly await those more creative anecdotes. Weird West’s conclusion takes it all into account, so be mindful of the people you kill, of all the decisions you make. Far more than a lot of games with branching stories and morality systems, Weird West is watching everything you do.
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