Weird West Review – This Wild West is Definitely Weird

In Weird West, you start as Jane Bell, a retired bounty hunter who settled down, married, and had a child. Life was good until a back of lowlifes came knocking, killed off your child, and kidnapped your husband. Furious and ready for revenge, you pick up the irons again and decide to track down just who did this and make them pay. If anything, Weird West starts with a bang and doesn’t let up. 

Game Name: Weird West
Platform(s): PC (reviewed), PS4, Xbox One and Xbox Game Pass
Publisher(s): Devolver Digital
Developer(s): Wolfeye Studios
Release Date: March 31st, 2022 

This isn’t the Wild West I’m familiar with, but it’s definitely weird. Unlike having desperados and varmints, we got the undead and other supernatural things that either want to end your life or help you. As the title suggests, this game is all sorts of weird, but spilling the beans on just what ain’t my cup of joe. You’ll have to see for yourself, but trust me — if you like odd storylines full of plot twists and having the ability to influence how that story plays out, then you’ll like Weird West. Throughout Weird West, you’ll be presented with many decisions to make, similar to that of Mass Effect. Everything you do will influence everything in the world that applies to you and the NPCs. For example, should you allow an NPC to be killed off instead of helping them escape, you’ll miss out on a valuable ally who may come in and save you from sudden death. Or you’ll miss out on some useful items. Maybe you decide not to turn in that person you were set out to kill, and they remember it the next time you run into them.

There’s also a reputation system that will also affect the game based on your actions. Perhaps you saw a dead body in the town, ripe for the picking but a bystander saw you do it. Or you decided you didn’t want to pay the coin for a horse and decided to take a five-finger discount, but you got caught doing it, which made your reputation take a hit.  Now, I’m not saying you have to play the Weird West as a goody-two-shoes. But if you do want to be the morally grey character or plain bad guy, you’ll have to be smart about it. Wrecking reputation works both ways. A good reputation will earn you discounts and other nice perks, while a terrible reputation can get you run out of town or worse. Yet, if that doesn’t bother you like it didn’t bother me at times, go for it. But that’s what I enjoyed with Weird West. You play as you want and damn the consequences. 

That extends to combat as well, and you’re given a nice set of resources on how you address random encounters and other battles. You can go in, guns blazing and wrecking everything in sight, complete with a bullet-time ability that lets you slow down time while you lock onto enemies and blast them. Or you can do your best Solid Snake impersonation and stealth your way through most encounters. Honestly, I enjoyed both methods. There’s something satisfying about sneaking behind an enemy and choking their lights out, while other times just taking my favorite shotgun and blowing away everything I see. However, it’s not just as simple as killing everyone, and you do have to play smart as the game features a vendetta system. Basically, if you are tasked with capturing or killing a specific NPC, you’ll be required to take out that NPC and its posse as well. Or make sure when you do the deed that no one sees you. Otherwise, some of those varmints may escape and will vow revenge on you. And then they’ll pop up in the damnedest locations — like when you encounter a town or jump you while you’re in the world. While it may seem like that’s annoying, I felt it added some extra flavor to the game. 

While the game looks like it would be a turn-based game, tit’s an isometric immersive sim with real-time combat. You have full control of the character are able to use a variety of ranged weapons, including pistols, rifles, shotguns, bows and arrows, as well as bladed weapons such as knives, machetes, and more. All of which can be selected on the fly, using mapped keys or a weapon wheel selector. Those weapons can also be upgraded, adding extra damage, extending the amount of ammo they can carry, and more. Thanks to the ability and perks system, your character can also be upgraded. While you don’t level up by earning experience points, instead, you’ll find items in the world; Nimp Relics, which allows you to acquire abilities, and Golden Ace of Spades, which provides a number of perks that will augment your character. 

At first glance, you might think that Weird West is all about this heroine who’s looking for revenge. Except, it’s more than that, and when you finish your original journey, another one starts. Thankfully, all of the perks you’ve acquired will stay with you throughout your next couple of journeys. You’ll keep whatever weapons and gear that you collected along the way, as long as they were on the prior character you played as. However, since you won’t be playing the same character for the game’s duration, you will lose any abilities you’ve selected prior. As for the next journeys, they’re all about something special and unique, and without ruining the surprise, they are a nice way to stretch the length of Weird West. I clocked in about 25 hours for my first playthrough of the game. However, I did skip over several optional quests. If you’re someone who likes to explore and do everything available, the playtime will be extended as there’s plenty to do in the game.

I really enjoyed my time with Weird West, more so than I initially thought I would. For the most part, it’s an interesting and fun title that even made me stop playing Elden Ring for a while. However, there were some issues with the game that bothered me, and those were all centered around the AI-controlled characters. While you can go all lone-wolf, things tend to be easier when you recruit AI-controlled characters to join the cause. Some will approach you to be part of your team of possible three; others you’ll find in towns and other locations. Now, I don’t have an issue with bringing those characters along, as it made things easier. However, for lack of tact, they are downright dumb. They’ll attempt to chase down the enemy during combat, often leaving you alone to fend for yourself.  In reality, they’re like lemmings walking to their deaths. What makes it worse is that you can’t control or direct them. All you can do is equip them with some better weapons, armor, and items and hope that they use them. To their credit, as I progressed through the game, I did see that the former characters I played as did make use of their arsenal and perks. I wish all the NPCs you grouped up with did the same.

Outside of the AI-controlled characters, my only issue wiht the game is the inventory system. While at first, it seems massive, when you’re out in the world and away from a town, you’ll constantly be picking up items. Weapons, gear, consumables, and other random things. The inventory fills up fast, and I’m okay with that. Except when you have multiple of the same item, say like bandages, I wish they would stack higher than taking up two or three extra slots. If they are the same item, I’d rather they share one slot, allowing the players to use those other inventory slots for other things. Instead, I was constantly scrapping items or dropping them — items I could have sold to make some extra money. It’s a minor gripe, but it’s still something I hope that Wolfeyes Studios addresses.

My time with Weird West was with the PC version, and I’m happy to report that despite a few bugs that were already handled, the game performance exceptionally well. As always, I tend to play games on both a high-end PC and a much lower-end PC, to see how well a game is optimized. With Weird West, both the PC is equipped with an Intel i9-12900k+ RTX 3080 Ti and the other with an AMD Ryzen 7 2700x + GTX 1080, handled the game with no issues. There’s also a varied amount of options to enable or disable, as well changing the UI size. Yes, Wield West does support Ultrawide monitors. During sessions where I wasn’t recording gameplay, I enabled Ultrawide support which helped add some extra immersion — at least it did to me.

Both the keyboard/mouse and controllers are supported, and while I did use the KBM combo originally, I felt the game played better using my controller instead. While it isn’t exactly a twin-stick shooter, when you use a controller, it does feel like one. For those wondering if you can also use either the DualShock 4 or DualSense controller, then you’ll be happy to know that you can. The game supports both controllers, though when enabled it will only show a DualShock controller image. At the same time, the Xbox One and Xbox Series controllers will default to the original Xbox One controller. 

I should add that initially, the combat was a bit awkward to me, due to the control scheme. Using a mouse, hovering over the targets tended to experience some drifting and it wasn’t until I adjusted the sensitivity is when things became easier. When I switched to the Xbox controller, I felt that was more natural to me.

Verdict

I enjoyed my time with Weird West more so than I thought I would. The unique Western setting grew on me; while I was never one for Western shows — I don’t think I’ve ever watched one. The game has this unique feeling to it, and when coupled with the branching storyline, fun combat system, while letting me play how I wanted to play was a blast. Sure, I may have done some silly things that I had to pay for, it didn’t matter. I don’t know how many ways I can say that I enjoyed playing this game, so I’ll leave it at this. If you like games where you determine your fate, an enjoyable combat system, and lots of charm, you may want to give Weird West a try.