Checking out Weird West - Preview
New game studios are always a delight, passionate folks coming together to create something new, but then there is always a risk to them, do they have the skills and drive to see their game to completion. Wolf Eye Studios thankfully eschews that last point as they are mostly comprised by former Arkane staff, including that studios founder Raphaël Colantonio, or better known as Raf. We recently had the chance to see the game in action, as well as hear from Raf and the team, about the studios debut title Weird West and it was weird, in the best way possible.
If I had to sum up Weird West in a single sentence, I could say it is a western themed Diablo style game and it would be correct, though it would miss out on a lot of the important facts about the game, that make it something else. The game may look like Diablo, but with a western theme, it even has multiple characters to play as, but the game offers a lot more than just doing another me-too in game design, starting with combat. Combat is done with what could be described as a twin stick shooter system, you can move around, while shooting enemies at the same time, the game’s first story provides a good sense of how it all works. You really only need to aim, much like the old DOOM and Wolfenstein games, height isn’t something you need to consider, the game takes care of that.
What makes this different from a game like Diablo though, is that you have control over how you want to interact with the world and more importantly, how it reacts to you. During the gameplay presentation, we got to see Julien from Wolf Eye Studios mess around the with the world and this messing around is not just him being silly, no it is picking up items and using them to cause other things to happen in the world. A clear example is the use of TNT, a stapple for those living out in the wild west and while it can be used in combat, it can also be used to impact the world, which can give you new things to explore. Another example is fire and while in our demo it was raining the first time we attempted to see it in action, that also showed off how the world interacts with everything else, it isn’t just that fire burns things, it behaves like you would expect, very much like the world in The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild does; thankfully we did eventually get to see the fire burn through things.
Beyond setting things on fire there are more things to consider, like doors, most doors in the west are made of wood, which can be broken down, therefore allowing you access to whatever lies behind, but you can also explore the world to find a key, how you approach it is up to you. In the mission we were undertaking, there was information provided by the town sheriff, but the game doesn’t just force you on, if you are not careful you can kill them, which changes things up in how people perceive you, but also that character is then gone for the rest of the game. Quest details provided though, we pushed on and when leaving town, we got to see a good look at the map for the game, or at least the screen the map will fill in, as you explore the world. Something that I noticed as we were moving to a destination, is that there is a time associated with the moves and confirming with Raf, the game is always in motion, when you are in towns or large-scale encounters, time moves at a much slower rate, but it is always moving. This means when you get a quest that states someone might die in a day, you have to consider the 7 hours it will take to reach where they are, leave it too late and you could fail in the rescue of them.
Finally, we got to the bandit hideout, where our characters husband was taken and it was time to get in there and take them back, the only question was how, thankfully we got to see a few ways. The first was to go in guns blazing and as this is a western themed game, that made sense, sadly though, no matter how legendary our bounty hunter character was, a few folks shooting back at once, quickly lead to her death. Loading back in, the second approach was to sneak around, taking enemies down and hiding the bodies, looking for information about access points and such, now it is important to note that you can go in guns firing and take everyone out, but it might be a real challenge early on.
It was not long after our mission was classed as a success, that the demo came to and end and we got to learn more about the game. Weird West is taking the concept of a western and applying a mix of horror and myth to it, that just comes together in a cool way, how that plays out across the games full length is something I am keen to discover. The comic inspired visuals, especially with the western aesthetic do give off a Borderlands vibe, so again later game content is going to be crucial, but if this is a game that looks interesting to you, then I highly suggest you give it a proper look, because from our early impressions, it might be weird but it is looking damn good doing it.
