That bigger picture begins in a
familiar place: with a bounty hunter
coming out of retirement. For the
first few hours, I was tangling with
outlaws in typical Wild West fashion
and wondering where
the weirdness was. You
buy supplies in towns
and pick up bounties
before heading out,
traversing an open
world map stuffed with
abandoned mines 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 combat.
Stealth is typically my preferred
approach, but here I used it as an
opening salvo, as a prelude to the
inevitable massacre when it all went
wrong. That’s partly because the
fiction encourages it, and partly
because of the murky visual style,
which sacrifices readability for a
grungy comic book aesthetic. I was
forever zooming in, to better make
out the characters, and zooming out
for an overview, and generally getting
myself spotted in the process.
When fighting does break out, it’s
refreshingly quick and replete with
supernatural abilities. However,
between that dingy visual style, and a
complex twin-stick control scheme, I
never found it all that enjoyable.
THIS LITTLE PIGGY...
Things pick up for the second story
in the anthology, which puts you in
the trotters of an unholy pigman
mash-up who leaves his swamp to
enact revenge upon a witch. All that
promised weirdness comes out in a
flood, as you chat with a sentient,
foul-mouthed tree and battle witches
in ancient, subterranean temples.
Structurally, the five stories are
similar, playing out as miniature
CRPGs complete with sidequests and
companions. You can
even recruit the
protagonists of the
previous stories, each
of whom has been
marked by a mystical
brand. These are
stories with memorable
characters including
Pigman Joe, cursed so
he can only communicate in rhyme.
While each new chapter is a fresh
start of sorts, certain elements persist,
from the overarching story to theoutcomes of major decisions and
more minor actions.
To give an example – and it’s a
spoiler for the second chapter – you
can choose to leave your fellow
pigmen as soulless husks, or return
their missing souls to their bodies.
Pick option B and they’ll go out into
society, turning up in subsequent
chapters as NPCs. Not every decision
is as meaningful, but you do feel like
you’re having an impact on the world.
You can also turn settlements into
ghost towns by wiping out their
inhabitants. And that’s not a part of
the storyline, just something you can
do if you want to. Kill everyone in the
town of Grackle and the place will
become abandoned. Bandits might
even have moved in, next time you
visit. Similarly, clear out a bandit-
occupied town and its former
residents may eventually return to
their own homes.
In truth, you’ll hardly miss one
town if it falls to ruin, but the
possibility is exciting – the thought
that almost anyone can be killed, and
the game will roll it. I tested this at
one point, when a story ally attacked
me in a scripted event. 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 and easily beaten.
I’m sure there will be better
examples once Weird West is out in
the wild, and I keenly await those
more creative anecdotes. The game’s
conclusion takes it all into account, so
be mindful of the people you kill, and
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.
79
Look past the murky
aesthetic and clunky
combat: this is an
exciting fusion of sim
and CRPG.VERDICT
I
’ve lived many lives as I’ve travelled around in 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 plus oil barrel or revolver plus
John Woo slow-mo dive – Weird West is just as concerned with the bigger
picture as other immersive sims, including Dishonored and Prey.
WEIRD, WEIRD WEST
Top-down immersive sim WEIRD WEST offers a fistful of supernatural horrorBy Tom SykesYou can even
recruit the
protagonists of
the previous
storiesNEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
A top-down immersive
sim set in the Weird
West – a Wild West full
of supernatural
monsters
EXPECT TO PAY
£31
DEVELOPER
WolfEye Studios
PUBLISHER
Devolver DigitalREVIEWED ON
Intel Core i7-10750H,
16GB RAM, GeForce
RTX 2060
MULTIPLAYER
No
LINK
weirdwest.comWESTWORLD
A snapshot of Weird West’s hectic combat1
BFF
Characters
helped out in
sidequests can
become Friends for
Life, meaning they’ll
appear randomlyin
battle. It’s a lovely
gesture, and you feel
bad when they die.2
POWER
CURVE
Abilities are a mix of
gun powers and
character-specific
supernatural
powers, all of which
are boughtusing
Nimp Relics, found
through exploration.3
FOLLOWING
THE LEADER
You can hire
mercenaries in
saloons, or recruit
the former
protagonists, who
will bringtheir
inventoriesacross
with them.3
2
1
Weird West