Weird West rides in early 2022: Here's what we know

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Update: Weird West has been delayed until March 2022 to iron out some bugs/"quirks" that came up during beta testing.

For those who are just hearing about the title, here's a quick recap:

Weird West is being developed by a promising new indie studio called WolfEye Studios. This studio has a lot of eyes on them, as many Arkane veterans are part of its makeup-- the most notable being its President/Creative Director, who was the Founder and former Creative Director for Arkane Studios. (For those who don't know, Arkane is the studio behind games Dishonored and Prey, so it is expected that Weird West will feel similar.)

Weird West is... well, kind of in the name. It's weird (think eldritch, undead, curses, and supernatural goodies), and it is based on Western frontier towns during the height of America's Wild West days.

Image caption: A look at the gritty visuals of Weird West. (Anyone else picking up some inspiration from places like Obsidian Studios? Just me?)

With the above recap, here is a quick rundown of what we know. 

  • The game is set to release on January 11th, 2022.
  • The game has 5 playable characters, assumedly with 5 different layouts of skills, abilities, and combat styles.
  • It's a top-down ARPG that doesn't get clunked down with slow weapon changing (you can swap equipment on the fly, mid-combat) or overly-complex leveling trees.
  • WolfEye's mission statement gives me a pretty clear roadmap of what to expect, and honestly?
    I'm here for it.
    • Straight from the source:
      "With WolfEye, we’re pushing our passion further and go deeper with the simulation and gameplay possibilities by focusing on interactions more than we ever did in our past games. We value bold art direction and stylized graphics. Simplified visual production pipeline allows us to be more agile and focus on what really matters: player experience as a whole. We want players to live their own adventures in rich simulated worlds that respond to actions and decisions in ways that is unique to each playthrough."

Well, there you have it. A studio working towards rougher graphics for better gameplay feels counterintuitive to many AAA titles being thrown out there, and I have to admit that it feels like a breath of fresh air to see that. 

  • The world of Weird West is massive. I mean that not only in the sense of map-scale but in how many things are packed into it and how many things players can do with it all. Creative, out-of-the-box thinking is rewarded above everything else. Each mission is full of multiple alternatives for how to approach resolution, and not every resolution will yield the same catches. Want to get creative? Get creative. There's a reason for each of the props on the map, and that reason isn't just to look pretty. Do some damage by hucking oil lamps, or shooting cartridge boxes to make DIY shrapnel bombs. Don't expect to find everything about this game in your first playthrough, or even your 5th.
  • To the above point, the game's replayability seems pretty endless. An open-world of witches, weirdos, werewolves, wanderers... and all of them want a piece of you for lunch. Sounds like a game I'd drop 100+ hours in.

Are you excited for Weird West? How do you think it'll perform? (Based on the success of other eerie-Western stories such as Preacher, I think Weird West will be a hit.)

If you're interested in seeing more of the game, you can watch a Dev Demo from July 2021.

Replies • 211






Interstellar

I'm curious how it will be implemented and whether it is worthwhile times to approach ^^