![]() The danger and uncertainty of both genres mesh well, and I found myself, not usually someone interested in video game narratives in any particular way, completely engrossed. isn’t something completely unheard of, but it is unusual and it’s executed well here. Taking the elements of monsters of gothic horror out of European cities and putting them into the setting of the plains and deserts of the western U.S. What you end up with is a surprising and interesting take on both sub genres. Likely thanks to the fact that there was a member from one of the Anishinaabe tribes on the writing staff. They, along with most of the various groups in the game, feel considered and interesting. A people called the Fire Nation Tribe works as a stand-in for Native Americans as a whole, but especially the group of tribes that associate under the Anishinaabe banner from the Great Lakes region. This world is a mix and match of gothic macabre horror and western sheriffs, outlaws, and Indians. The name may seem plainly obvious, but it’s honest. It’s an intriguing set up that lends itself to what I think is Weird West’s best feature: its tone and atmosphere. ![]() As the camera fades in and out, you take control of a woman who we quickly learn is a retired bounty hunter whose husband has been kidnapped by a gang with less than traditional motives. As it turns out, these five portraits form the basis of the game’s wider structure as the story has you take turns playing out the stories of five different denizens of this strange place. The game itself opens with a scene of a person in a hood being used in some ritual involving five portraits. Familiar images of cowboys and stagecoaches mixed with silhouettes of zombies, cannibals, and witches summoning wraiths commentated by a ghostly woman’s voice with a faint Wyoming accent. The opening cinematic shows what kind of world WolfEye is trying to build. Weird West immediately lives up to its name upon launching. But perhaps now the dust has settled enough to let a studio from such renowned stock take a smaller, spookier, and more Indie approach to the Wild West. It makes sense, given the scope of RDR2’s success, that we haven’t seen a lot of Western games released since. Now, Devolver has published the first release from new studio WolfEye in Weird West, which was started by former Arkane Studios (studio behind Dishonored and most recently, Deathloop) creatives and others. Evidently I’m not the only one, given that film Westerns were the largest portion of movies being made at one point last century and even recently just three years ago Rockstar Games released their mega-smash hit Red Dead Redemption 2, which itself, is a sequel to a huge smash hit Western. As a guy who grew up going on road trips with my family through the western half of the U.S., I developed a special appreciation for art of the Western genre.
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