Today’s game was another one of those random discoveries I sometimes make. Advertised on the GamePass homepage, “Weird West” almost seemed like an entertaining indie title that you play through in one, maybe two streams. The ratings were definitely positive, but not outstanding – it seemed worth a try. You can read here how much it was really worth in the end and how weird the whole experience actually was.

Since neither the title nor the studio ringed any bell for me (developed by WolfEye Studios and published by Devolver Digital), I approached this title with a relatively open mind. All I could tell from the preview was that it was a Wild West game – from an isometric perspective, you control a character and sneak and fight your way through the area. The “weird” part is the special enemies: werewolves, witches, spider monsters – all the classics and much more were present.

The story also starts off quite harmlessly. You take on the role of a farmer whose child is killed and whoms husband is kidnapped – classic western stories. So we dig out our trusty revolvers again (we already had been bounty hunters before) and go looking for our man. However, we already experience the first two surprises: we have an open game world in front of us – and it is huge!

That was probably the first moment when I realized that the game was a little bigger than I thought. By the way, “open” in terms of the game world has to be put into perspective a bit here: you can fast travel to fixed points, but you can take a rest everywhere else. The fixed points are classic cities, bandit hideouts, but also caves, swamps and other unpleasant places. The freely selectable camps usually consist of a tent, a cooking area and a few animals that match the environment and can be hunted and eaten to restore health – nothing special, but definitely useful on longer hikes.

Longer hikes are a good keyword because they can quickly become dangerous. The fast travel doesn’t happen instantly, but takes a certain amount of time, during which the playing time runs much faster. However, it can happen that if you travel through a forest at night you are attacked by some scoundrels – these incidents rarely fit into your plan and were sometimes downright annoying, but overall they fit into the concept very well.

The concept of the game was the next big thing that really surprised me. Because we found our husband, who was our main quest, after about a fifth of the gametime and a fifth of the map was revealed – and the story was over. But before I could wonder about it, the whole plan of the game unfolded in front of us – and it really surprised me.

I don’t want to go into the story too much, but this much will be said: you play through a total of five storylines, which in the end have something to do with each other – but I won’t reveal what. Overall, I can say that each of these quest lines had their own special charm and each time presented you with new challenges and forced you to rethink your way of playing. I found that very refreshing and it was always very exciting when you had to get used to new characteristics and skills – I liked this idea very much and found it to be implemented very well.

What always remained the same, and in my opinion was implemented very successfully, was the basic principle of the game. I would almost compare it to Red Dead Redemption, although the focus here is definitely more on stealth. Nevertheless, it is also an open world action adventure with role-playing elements – you can sell and improve weapons and equipment, hunt animals and, in addition to the very interesting main quests, also take on side missions – above all, of course, bounty hunts being very appropriate for the Wild West.

You are always presented with a character, which means adjustments to your actual appearance are not possible, but clothing and, to a limited extent, accessories can be personalized. The weapons cannot be improved and refined in as much detail as in RDR, but still – you can definitely see a similarity.

In addition to all these features, the game also offers another special feature: decisions and honor. Honor is also defined by how you behave – if you shoot a lot of passersby it tends to decrease, if you shoot highwaymen and complete bounty hunts it increases. It is also influenced by specific decision points in the main story, and very strongly so. If I help one party, the other party might not like me anymore and vice versa. At the same time, I also influence the further course of the story – I think that was very well done.

Finally, I would like to briefly address the technical points. We played the game on my Series S Xbox and had no problems – period. No bugs, no hangs, no frame drops. The controls worked very well and the graphics were very nice to look at and fitting the theme of the game. I really liked the sound design, although I would have liked a little more voice acting in the text passages – I had to read aloud a lot. But overall it was a good experience.

My conclusion is probably very easy to find: I really liked the game! I was amazed at how extensive and profound the game becomes, especially towards the end – it’s not a philosophical thesis, but it definitely makes you think. I went in with completely wrong expectations and was pleasantly surprised. That can happen to me more often.

I really liked the main story and the mechanics with the decisions, and the consequences for many subsequent events were convincing. The division into several storylines was very well implemented and I liked it. Only the side missions never really impressed me – they weren’t bad, but they never interested me enough to give up my time on them – your mileage may vary here.

If you haven’t played the game yet, I highly recommend it! How did you like it while watching? Was it interesting, had you perhaps already played it yourself? Feel free to join the discussion on Discord!