Game News Weird West Released

[Infinitron]

Tags: Devolver Digital; Weird West; WolfEye Studios

Since it was announced at the end of 2019, WolfEye Studios' Weird West has been regarded with both anticipation and skepticism. On one hand, a highly reactive systems-driven immersive sim from affable Arkane Studios co-founder Raf Colantonio is something we were all up for. On the other hand, it was an isometric action-RPG rather than first person as expected, with an unusual visual style and a reliance on procedural generation. However, esteemed Codexer Child of Malkav's beta impressions earlier this year were quite positive, and so we arrived at the game's launch date with an open mind. Here's its launch trailer, which is full of weird western characters doing weird western things.

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Mainstream reviews of Weird West have been mixed. Most are fairly positive, but some reviewers couldn't get over the janky combat or just didn't find immersive sim hijinks interesting enough to carry the game. Here's the list:

Destructoid 8/10
Digital Trends 3.5/5
Eurogamer
Game Informer 8.5/10
Game Rant 4/5
Gamepressure 9/10
GameSpace 8/10
God is a Geek 7.5/10
IGN 8/10
New Game Network 80/100
NME 3/5
Noisy Pixel 8/10
PC Gamer 79/100
PC Invasion 6.5/10
PCGamesN 7/10
Player 2 B+
Polygon
Rock Paper Shotgun
RPG Fan 68/100
TheSixthAxis 5/10
Wccftech 8/10
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Weird West is available on Steam for $40 and is also on Microsoft's Game Pass, marking the end of a fairly interesting first quarter for RPGs. Unfortunately, the game was pulled from GOG at the last minute (despite being available for preorder!) and won't be available there until the end of April.

 

[Falksi]

Honestly the combat in this game looks so shit.

 

[King Crispy]

It's horrible. Skip it.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

It's quite good. Get it.

(But disable "auto-unzoom when aiming" plus change aiming mode from "toggle" to "hold".)

 

[King Crispy]

If you want an actual RPG, then play one. Even Black Geyser is okay.

If you want a twin-stick shooter, play one, like The Ascent, which is quite good.

This.... I don't even know what this is.

 

[lukaszek]

This.... I don't even know what this is.

would you say its weird?

 

[Roguey]

If you want an actual RPG, then play one. Even Black Geyser is okay.

If you want a twin-stick shooter, play one, like The Ascent, which is quite good.

This.... I don't even know what this is.

The spiritual successor to Ultima 8.

 

[Sin2x]

The spiritual successor to Ultima 8.

Ultima VIII looked beautiful, at least. You can play it with ScummVM nowadays BTW.

 

[RunningWolf]

Since the moment it was announced till now all i can say is:

Meh

 

[CRD]

it's pretty fun, have more c&c than the typical game and some good and other strange game design choices, but it's worth a try.

ACG and Gman have a decent review, way better than the traditional press ones





I hope the game does well and we can have some second part or other game building upon it, because there is a lot of great things there that can make some day another game a real diamond

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Yeah, I want this game. Mmmm hmmmm twin-stick real time ... HOLY SHIT YEAH!

 

[aratuk]

Why was it pulled from GOG? Dish the drama!

 

[Kruno]

Is this an in season April Fools joke?

 

[tindrli]

there is something about this game that makes me install it.. will defenetly try it.

 

[Roguey]

Why was it pulled from GOG? Dish the drama!

No official reason. It might have to do with how Weird West collects telemetry data you can't turn off which goes against GOG's policy:

We believe you should have freedom of choice and the right to decide how you use, enjoy, and keep the games you bought. It manifests in three points:

• 1. The single-player mode has to be accessible offline.

• 2. Games you bought and downloaded can never be taken from you or altered against your will.

• 3. The GOG GALAXY client is and will remain optional for accessing single-player offline mode.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Why was it pulled from GOG? Dish the drama!

No official reason. It might have to do with how Weird West collects telemetry data you can't turn off which goes against GOG's policy:

We believe you should have freedom of choice and the right to decide how you use, enjoy, and keep the games you bought. It manifests in three points:

• 
  
  
  • 1. The single-player mode has to be accessible offline.

• 
  
  
  • 2. Games you bought and downloaded can never be taken from you or altered against your will.

• 
  
  
  • 3. The GOG GALAXY client is and will remain optional for accessing single-player offline mode.

Don't see anything in GOG's policy about telemetry and they have games that already collect that stuff on there from a quick search.
Having it available for preorder for months then pulling it the last minute without even explaining why is shitty.


Bonus fun fact:
every unity game has telemetry enabled by default. There's not even a way for developers to disable it unless they pay money to Unity.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Unity bring us together.

Is that their slogan?

Or monitoring the gaming cattle? Looks like a case for the S-Files and the only arachnid investigator the codex has.

 

[Viata]

Unity is a shit engine, anyway. I avoid playing any game that has it. I have not missed any good game so far.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Seems some or maybe more on GOG are wanting refunds already because their pre-release purchase was delayed.

Someone mentioned this:
West of Dead


I guess it might be ok until Weird West is released on GOG. I wonder if there will be any additions later on?

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

I wonder if there will be any additions later on?

They've already announced a few, free ones too.

 

[Tyrion8338]

Fun little game so far, I`m maybe 5 or 8 hours in.

 

[Silentstorm]

Tried the game, saw witches, sirens, went after a bounty that made me face a group of werewolves, found rotting zombies(i think), and have a quest to help a cursed statue...and all i can think of is "meh...".

I guess i was expecting more RPG elements, but you barely talk, dialogue is rarely that interesting and choices are basically the most basic be a good guy or be an utter jerk by not healing people as they plead for help or leaving them in cages for cannibals to eat them.

Let's see, stealth is simple and boring, and gunplay is a bit awkward and just done better and more fun in other games, there are quite a few mechanics but nothing that truly feels fun or exciting, also, it's one of those games where you can upgrade weapons but materials are pretty damn rare and require being very lucky or being lucky enough to find a place with it and use an item to get some materials...said item can also break making the griding even worse.

Not that it's needed because the game isn't hard for now, i don't know, the game is just...it exists and feels mediocre and i hate feeling this way because i love the idea of the setting.

 

[azimuth]

This is a very good game, although it's quite actiony.

If you like the immersive sim genre, pick it up. It also has really good C&C, for those of you who like that kind of thing. The C&C is great throughout the whole campaign, and it also has interesting side quests, a fun companion system, and both immersive sim-style mechanical freedom as well as classic FO 1/2-style CRPG quest alternatives (e.g. you can access an area by impressing the gang in a duel OR you can work with the local bartender to drug the guards and sneak in).

There's a decent chunk of build freedom and playstyle freedom here. I am definitely using the environment to my advantage in 30% or so of fights (in DOS style with fire/poison barrels, electrified water, etc.), although most of the fighting is pretty straightforward shooting. Some people say they don't like the ability system, but it grew on me after 10 hours or so and I quite like it. I'd say I use abilities in every challenging battle in which I have free AP now.

Downsides are it's quite janky, still some minor bugs here and there (enemies didn't see me through walls like some people claim), a bit repetitive in the procedural elements. The core campaign encourages you to start "fresh" 5 times, although you retain a chunk of your progress. Still, I'd say if you enjoy the core immersive sim-style gameplay, then a bit of repetition is not the worst thing, and the repetitive elements can often be as quick or long as you want (e.g. you can surgically assassinate a bounty target without wiping out the whole map of goons).

Really cool vendetta and reputation systems. Definitely could go at least two playthroughs and make different plot/quest/build choices. Good run vs. evil run, for example. Any NPC - including core story characters - can be killed, and you can wipe out any settlement (new things will move in when a settlement is abandoned).

24 hours in it atm.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Agreed ^. I'm still only at 16 hours, but overall it's just pretty fun. Atop of fine-tuning balance, AI and camera, hopefully they may flesh out some of the content in the post-release patches and additions.

Let's see, stealth is simple and boring, and gunplay is a bit awkward and just done better and more fun in other games, there are quite a few mechanics but nothing that truly feels fun or exciting.

This kind of reminds me of Warren Spector's GDC Post Mortem of Deus Ex.

I was terrified.
If people compare our combat to Half-Life, we're dead.
If people compare our sneaking to Thief, we're dead.
And if people compare our role-playing elements to Baldur's Gate, we're dead.

And I kinda agree with your view point, if not as harshly. The shooting can be quite fun, but it doesn't compete with the best of them out there. The stealth can be fun, but it won't touch the brilliant Desperados 3. And so on and so forth. However, acknowledging this to me is missing the point. The point is that you get to make an actual choice, as opposed to being funneled down a particular path.

I'm still reminded of a dev opinion that this sort of design would better suit big teams, as systems driven gameplay as well as big emphasis on player agency would be quite complex to develop. As such I'm wondering whether studios such as WolfEye wouldn't be better suited for more focused projects, maybe a Thief successor truly, mainly focused on stealth (which neither Dishonored was either, even though I liked them very much, in particular their fantastic level design).

 

[Silentstorm]

Mostly i just haven't found the game that engaging or fun, and sometimes dissapointing, like finding my first temple, picking a sigil stone...and only regular enemies and some books being there, caves are also samey so far and exploring the world just isn't as engaging as some other games, it's like everything is there for the game to be good, but everything is just so average or half-baked the diamond in the rough doesn't come through.

I am still trying it, if only because i hear you unlock new stories and instead of playing with a regular human, you get to play as a Pigman that must sneak in to towns, then as a werewolf and so forth until you play as a witch, basically, every future character seems more fun than Jane Bell, already got spoiled in learning you can recruit every past character but man, hearing this just made me wish we could make our own characters or pick which scenario to play through at the start.