Weird West takes you through a version of the Wild West that takes inspiration from folklore and horror stories. Were the former Arkane Studios developers able to elevate their skills in the indie scene? Grab your six shooters, put on some wards, eat some wolfsbane, and let’s head out. It was clear by their studio’s mission goal that they were taking all of their experience and crafting something that focused on gameplay freedom that Immersive Sim fans would love. The Founder/Creative Director, Raphael Colantonio, and CEO/Executive producer, Julien Roby, both came from Arkane Studios and worked on one of my favorite Immersive Sims, Dishonored. A few handcrafted levels with variation and real substance are always going to be better than one repetitive map that has procedural elements within.It’s no surprise to me that the first game the 2019 founded development studio WolfEye Studios is an ARPG Immersive Sim. My biggest recommendations would be to focus on better, more relatable characters that are less grounded in fiction and trope, and to not focus on procedural generation to pad the amount of content in your game. All of his previous games felt more enjoyable to play than this one does. I know this was a labour of love for the devs, and I do very much love Raph Colantonio and I think he's an excellent designer, but this is a really bad example of what he's capable of. Compounded with the issues regarding characterization and story, it gets quite a poor rating from me. It verges on being fun in the early game before you become aware at how many environments repeat ad nauseum, shooting itself in the foot before it can succeed at being a fun experience. If I were going to rate how it stacks up with its peers, I'd give it a 2 or a 3. I'd give it a 4 for being slightly below average in terms of enjoyment, and that's because I've chosen to be charitable and rate it like I would a twinstick shooter rather than I would an immersive sim. It plays far more like a twinstick shooter than it does an immersive sim, and judging it by the same metric I would Deus Ex, Dishonored or Prey, I can't help but be left disappointed. Otherwise, there are really no creative traversal powers or opportunities to use them creatively to bypass obstacles. The only powers that are worth using are designed explicitly for combat. There are a bunch of little settlements around the map, but they all share the exact same tileset and do nothing to distinguish them from one another. There are several mines in the game but they all share the exact same map. Also, one of the more glaring issues, the levels repeat frequently. The level design is passable, but there are very few alternative pathways that don't consist of climbing some rocks to get the high ground on your enemies. If you compare it with a game like Dishonored or Dishonored 2, the shortcomings really become pronounced. The gunplay is exceptionally poor, with certain enemies becoming bulletsponges and most powers being fairly useless. If the men aren't playing the role of damsel in distress, they're made to be unethical perverts with sex slaves and cartoonishly evil motivations. You'll constantly meet powerful female characters who task you with going to rescue a man who has been kidnapped due to his own sheer incompetence. As a result, it becomes a chore to play through the game. The characters are boring and uninspired, the story suffers from a serious lack of pacing and jumps around between the uninteresting characters too frequently to form any kind of attachment to them, the factions and story beats are somewhat unbelievable and it really wears its 2022 politics on its sleeve. The characters are boring and uninspired, the story suffers from a serious lack of It's a VERY weak entry in the canon of immersive sims. It's a VERY weak entry in the canon of immersive sims.
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