What The STRUCK is Weird West?
(My BRUTALLY honest Final Impressions of the game after completing it)
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Weird West launched on March 31th, 2022 for PC (Epic [creator link], Humble [partner link], Steam, GoG, PlayStation, & XBOX). After completing the game’s campaign I’m ready to share my Final Impressions and explain “What The STRUCK is Weird West?“.
I’ll be brutally honest and some of the things I say may not be nice but my overall impression of the game is: that it’s a solid RPG but might feel a bit overpriced for what it offers (at least in EU & NA regions). I’ve enjoyed playing the game at my own pace and only doing as much side content as i felt like it and there were very few thing that made me feel bad. Why? Hopefully, it will get clear after reading this post (or watching my video version).
Survive and unveil the mysteries of the Weird West through the intertwined destinies of its unusual heroes in an immersive sim from the co-creators of Dishonored and Prey.
Quoted from the game’s Steam Store.
This post could end up getting expanded and updated eventually but, hopefully, for now it includes enough information to serve as a basic guide on top of a final impressions article.
Video Version:
The Story:
This is how the game is described by the devs:
Discover a dark fantasy reimagining of the Wild West where lawmen and gunslingers share the frontier with fantastical creatures. Journey through the story of a group of atypical heroes, written into legend by the decisions you make in an unforgiving land. Each journey is unique and tailored to the actions taken – a series of high stakes adventures where everything counts and the world reacts to the choices you make. Form a posse or venture forth alone into an otherworldly confines of the Weird West and make each legend your own.
Quoted from the Game’s Steam Page
The story begins with Jane Bell, a Bounty Hunter who needs to find her missing Husband. She also notices a strange brand on herself. As the player progresses her journey, more of the main story’s plot unravels and we slowly start to get what is going on. After Jane’s journey the player starts playing as the next character, and then the next, and so on.
Eventually, at the end of our 5th character’s journey the whole truth gets revealed and everything becomes clear. The 5 journeys will all build up to the finale and our actions will have somewhat of an impact on the final custscene/dialogue. It’s not what usually is referred to as ‘different ending’ but I don’t want to spoil exactly how the ‘choices matter’ aspect affects the ending.
The 5 characters’ journeys will put you up against all sorts of characters: bandits, zombies, witches, werewolves, corrupt mayors, insect-like creatures and more. And there will be plenty of side quests to keep you busy if you want to take things slow.
The Combat:
The combat system is pretty solid and it fuses a real-time action rpg combat with isometric view with a tactical mode (the you can toggle on/off) for a slow-motion pace to better plan your actions.
There will be a lot of shooting, slashing, using of various abilities, throwing dynamite and other throwable ‘weapons’ as well as using of 4 different types of consumables.
Players can also use cover to avoid direct hits as well an an option to take the stealthy approach by hiding into bushes and slowly sneaking up on their unsuspecting enemies.
World Map & Locations:
This is one of the things the game has done surprisingly well. It has that semi-table top feel that games like the Pathfinder series give off. There is a decently big world map with various biomes inhabited by different enemies. Throughout the map there are all sorts of areas, which the players can visit for all sorts of encounters, side quests, bounties and so on. Some of those areas are town (active ones or abandoned ones), others may be just minor trading outposts or Trapper camps. A fun thing to keep in mind is that after clearing out an abandoned town by destroying all enemies there it might eventually get repopulated and become a place where you can stop by to do some trading.
Quests & Side Quests:
There are plenty of side quests to do alongside the main story line. The main quest (without spoiling too much) let us take control of 5 different characters each with their own “Journey”. Those 5 journeys feel like 5 acts that are intertwined one way or another by the one thing (not spoiling what) that links those characters. After finishing one character’s journey, you can then meet then on the next one and recruit them as a follower, which will also grant you access to any loot you left behind in their bags/inventory.
The side quests vary from minor fetch and get rewarded type of tasks, to finding secret stashed loot, or even ones that request to find or rescue a missing person, as well as missions to clear out the enemies in a specific location.
There is also a LOT of freedom when it comes to HOW one can complete the quests. All key NPCs that are important to the main story can be killed without impacting one’s ability to complete the story. If you want to be a murderous outlaw and “kill first, ask questions never” the game’s got you covered. One particular main quest involved getting some information from a NPC that gave me the task to go and extort the deed for the lad of a certain farm and bring it to him. But then I decided to just kill that NPC and all of his goons and obtain the information by looting them for documents and rummaging through the building for the information that was promised to me in exchange for the aforementioned farm deed.
The Heroes/Classes:
As mentioned above, there are 5 different heroes each of them being a different class than the others. Each class has their own 3 or 4 class abilities as well as access to general abilities for each type of weapon: revolver, rifle, shotgun, bow, melee. Each of the general ability categories offers 4 passive abilities that players can learn.
Each class can use ANY weapon but there are some obvious synergies. There current 5 classes are:
- Bounty Hunter – A class that synergizes well with gun slinging pew pew pew
- Pigman – A class that offers great synergy with melee
- Protector – A class that you might want to play with a bow or a rifle
- Werewolf – A class that has a transformation mode (uses AP) and can synergize well with melee or shotguns
- Oneirist – A witch class that kind of synergizes well with all types of guns to keep yourself at range.
Loot & Itemization:
The itemization is kind of boring but good enough for such a single player story-based RPG without endgame. There are white, green, blue, purple and orange items. Orange being legendary and the rest being iron, copper, silver and gold.
Players have 8 equipment slots:
- 4 Guns slots (1 Revolver, 1 Shotgun, 1 Rifle, 1 Bow)
- 1 Melee Weapon slot
- a Vest slot (the body armor)
- 2 Amulet slots – There’s quite a few of those with various conditions to get the effects. Not sure if one can stack two of the same type other than the resistance ones.
It is kind of disappointing that legendary gear is just loot with a bit more stats than gold (purple) gear and there are no special affixes attached to that legendary gear. One thing worth keeping in mind is that you can not craft legendary weapons and those you either buy from the store when they show up there or find from specific locations BUT you can craft legendary armor. There are also 2 legendary amulets (I’ve found one and saw in the game’s wiki that another one exists) that are obtain only by finding them at their designated place.
Crafting – Forge & Tanning Rack:
There is an upgrade/crafting system – the forge & the tanning rack are the two stations we use for that.
The Forge is where you take ore nuggets and use them to upgrade RANGED weapons.
- Iron Ranged weapon + copper nuggets = copper version of that weapon
- Copper Ranged weapon + silver nuggets = silver version of that weapon
- Silver Ranged weapon + gold nuggets = golden version of a ranged weapon.
The Tanning Rack is where you use hides/pelts/skin from various animals to craft and upgrade vests (body) armor. The stats on the armor will depends on the material: snake skin, bear pelt, deer hide, etc. The grade of the material used will depends on the rarity of the item crafted – each material has a regular and superior version (example: snake skin & superior snake skin).
The Abilities:
As mentioned already, each class has their own 3 or 4 class abilities as well as access to general passive abilities for each type of weapon: revolver, rifle, shotgun, bow, melee. Each of the general ability categories offers 4 passive abilities that players can learn. Those abilities can be activated for the price of Action Points (AP) and some will cost more AP than others to activate. Here’s a list of all class abilities (just click this text).
The Perks:
The Perks are Weird West’s passives. The good thing about Perks is that they carry over across journeys (unlike abilities). Players unlock perks by spending Golden Ace Cards (you can find Golden Ace Cards all over the world: chests, quest rewards, etc.). Each perk has 3 levels and it costs 1, 3 and 5 cards for lvls 1, 2 and 3 respectively. For a full list of Perks and what they do you can check the wiki (just click this text).
The Bounties:
The bounty system is a nice way to earn some dollar coins while hunting down various outlaws. Players can interact with the bounty born in any active town (located next to the sheriff’s station) to see if there are any available bounties to take. One you take a bounty, you’ll have 15 in-game days to hunt down the target. One the target has been eliminated, players can collect the reward from any town’s sheriff.
The Shops:
With all the loot we pick up in this game we’ll also need places to sell it as well as to restock our supplies. In Weird West players will find various stores/shops in towns and other outposts like the Trappers’ Camps. There are few types of shops worth mentioning:
- The Bank – here you can sell ore nuggets and/or bars. Keep in mind smelting nugget into bars & selling the bars yields more profit than selling the nuggets.
- General Store – here you can buy or sell food, lockpicks, pickaxes and shovels as well as sell all sorts of “junk items”. There’s even a “sell all junk” option.
- Guns Store – here you can buy guns all of types as well as sell ranged & melee weapons. Sometimes a legendary gun may appear for sale.
- Doctor – here you buy medicine like bandages as well as other consumables like tonics & elixirs
- Tailor – here you can buy armor and bows as well as skinning tools and pelts/hides/leather/skin. You can also sell armor and melee weapons as well as the armor materials here.
Difficulty Modes:
There are 4 difficulty modes: Story/Normal/Hard/Very Hard and each of them will add the following changes to your game respectively:
- Enemies’ Detection Speed – SLOW/MEDIUM/FAST/VERY FAST
- Enemies’ Damage Output – LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH/VERY HIGH
- Enemies’ Fire Rate – SLOW/MEDIUM/HIGH/VERY HIGH
- Friendly Fire – OFF/PARTIAL/PARTIAL/FULLY ON
- Sleeping Regens – AP & HP/AP & HP/AP ONLY/AP ONLY
- Food HP Regen – MEDIUM/MEDIUM/MEDIUM/LOW
PROS & CONS:
PROS
- Artistically Beautiful World
- Choices Matter + A TON of freedom what you do
- An interesting main quest line
- It’s Wild West + Supernatural
- Real time combat that can be slowed down
- Beautiful VFX, SFX, & OST
- Gear Upgrade System
- Play as 5 different classes (1 after the other)
- A Passive Abilities System
- Some of the progress & loot carries over between journeys
- Passive Perks that carry over between heroes
- Plenty of side quests & ‘completionist bait’
- A Bounty System
- A Companion System
- A Reputation System (affects shops’ prices)
- Multiple Free DLCs coming post-launch
CONS
- lacking loot diversity & legendary gear is not special
- could use some QoL in various places
- not everything carries over between journeys (can’t leave the gold behind)
- many of the areas have been copy/paste reused (especially mines)
- can’t fully manage the companions’ equipment
- I’ve encountered some annoying bugs here and there
- pretty small inventory and no way to increase it
- no way to salvage melee weps and armor
- salvage almost never yields ore
- the purchase discount does not increase selling prices
- not much lockpick drops near certain locked doors & chests
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This concludes my 2-in-1 Final Impressions + Basic Guide for Weird West. If you’re interested in the game below are links to the various platforms where one can buy it (you can just click the links to open a new tab):
Platforms
Epic Games Store (creator link = I earn profit when you use It & buy the game)
Humble Store (also creator link = I earn profit when used to buy)
