Weird West: Definitive Edition - top-down immersive sim action-RPG from Arkane founder Raf Colantonio

[Latelistener]

Given all the impressions so far I'm perplexed about just what exactly is in this thing that Raph couldn't do in any given Arkane game. Seems like he's chasing the same kinds of people Dishonored/Prey/Death Loop were going for? Except doing worse because it's not first person.

If you're really interested in his motives you can watch some Disgusting Men podcasts. They had Harvey and Warren too. My impressions are that he simply burned out working for Bethesda for 10 years, with all its consequences of working with big budgets and being more of a CEO than a game developer. I don't think it's anything new.

Isometric point of view is not the issue of this game though. Underrail is fucking good. And it's funny because Underrail also had RTWP combat on its early stages of development.

 

[Zyondyne]

Alright, I've played it for a couple of hours and here are my conclusions so far.

Exploration is pretty awful. You'll spend 90% of the game looting containers, crates and tiny objects and for that you have to position your character juuust right in order for the "pick up" button prompt to appear. And because the game lacks visual clarity and color, you'll have a hard time seeing those objects, especially if they're on the ground or on top of other objects. I literally had to climb on a table to loot a book on it, lol. And there are DOZENS of such crates filled with nothing but junk-tier items in every single map. Sure, you could skip those, but that also means skipping a lot of upgrade points and more important items hidden beneath a lot of trash. And that's honestly all there is to exploration. Or most of it, anyway.

Also, there's the aggressive vignette effect that obstructs even more of the view, but that can fortunately be disabled by changing the .ini files (there's no in-game option for that, though)

Because of the wonky and awkward camera and the way the maps are designed, level are frustrating to navigate. A lot of the maps are big but empty and tedious to navigate at character speed. There's a minimap but for some reason, you cannot enlarge that.

It's basically a game that's mostly about hoarding and organizing trash tier items in a limited inventory with some combat sequences in-between. A lot of unnecessary micromanagement involved.

I think the game would have benefited more from a classical CRPG control scheme, where you point and click where you want to go. Although I wouldn't describe the game as a CRPG. It's an isometric shooter with pretty light RPG elements that quickly becomes repetitive.

The setting is interesting, but the story is easily ignorable.

Maybe some of you will like it, but it's honestly not for me. I truly think some of the core elements of this game that I personally despise can't simply be patched in the future (the awful camera, mediocre level design, a lot of micromanagement + one of the worst cases of looting/itemization & inventory micromanagement I've seen in recent history)

 

[Rieser]

Whoever thought that it'd be a great idea to copy the "lootable junk in every nook and cranny"-sperging from Expeditions: Viking but replace the unlimited inventory with a (very) limited one should consider necking themselves.

 

[Terenty]

I've been shot dead on the roof more than once. How does the game break? Only thing I've noticed is a companion getting stuck on the roof and I had to push them off.

Try shooting them with a rifle, they will go into alert for 10 seconds than it's business as usual, rinse repeat.

If they do spot you, may be you will catch a few stray bullets, but they will flock around the house and you can just throw dynamite which they ignore most of the time

 

[Alienman]

Probably get -100000 rep points for killing them.

Yes, the game does punish you for committing indiscriminate murder by lowering your reputation, assuming people know you did it. Seems pretty in line with real life in that respect. That said, nothing is stopping you killing even game-critical NPCs based on my own experiments.

That would assume people cares for gays in this weird west setting, so why would they have to hide that they are gay in that case? And shooting the "bigots" didn't have any rep impact.

 

[Alienman]

Probably get -100000 rep points for killing them.

Who knew karma and reputation systems were just a precursor to the chinese social credit system?

It's all Tim Cain's fault. Faggots, amiright?

It's the Fallout 3 version of morale system. Only thing missing is the sound Fallout 3 uses.

 

[The Regulator Guy]

(probably-not-major lore spoilers ahead)

I'm 13 hours in, on second "journey" (second character, i.e. Pigman) and enjoying it.

The setting's lore, from what I've found so far, is fun but odd -- this isn't just late-1800's America with werewolves, it's a world that was different for thousands (millions?) of years. There was some kind of precursor race that left underground temples; Christianity apparently never became a dominant religion (at one point a character looking forward to a combat mentioned feeling like it's Christmas, but I think that was just a throwaway line that wasn't thought out).

Apparently convergent social evolution created a Wild West-like society of one-street towns; six-shooters; signage in modern English; devotees of Gavan, Yeb, and Inun who dress like Catholic nuns; English, Chinese and Spanish surnames, and so forth -- but it may not even be Earth at all.

It's like the West, but weird!

 

[The Regulator Guy]

Whoever thought that it'd be a great idea to copy the "lootable junk in every nook and cranny"-sperging from Expeditions: Viking but replace the unlimited inventory with a (very) limited one should consider necking themselves.

Agreed, though so far I'm not having too much trouble. I drop 8-dollar junk items and low-quality meats first.

 

[Roguey]

(at one point a character looking forward to a combat mentioned feeling like it's Christmas, but I think that was just a throwaway line that wasn't thought out).

Troon can't even worldbuild right.

 

[kangaxx]

Probably get -100000 rep points for killing them.

Yes, the game does punish you for committing indiscriminate murder by lowering your reputation, assuming people know you did it. Seems pretty in line with real life in that respect. That said, nothing is stopping you killing even game-critical NPCs based on my own experiments.

That would assume people cares for gays in this weird west setting, so why would they have to hide that they are gay in that case? And shooting the "bigots" didn't have any rep impact.

The only gay I've encountered in 10h turns out to be a seriously vile rapist if you explore his grounds properly. By your tortured logic I assume it gives the game some anti-woke points?

 

[kangaxx]

I've been shot dead on the roof more than once. How does the game break? Only thing I've noticed is a companion getting stuck on the roof and I had to push them off.

Try shooting them with a rifle, they will go into alert for 10 seconds than it's business as usual, rinse repeat.

If they do spot you, may be you will catch a few stray bullets, but they will flock around the house and you can just throw dynamite which they ignore most of the time

Bad luck I suppose. That hasn't been the case with me. What difficulty are you playing on?

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Yeah, shooting in this game rocks, anyone tired melee combat? It is very good too, chop choop with machete rock.

 

[Skdursh]

-snip-

I don't know if you've just completely missed the point or are intentionally attempting to misrepresent the argument entirely. The argument is about why most media concerning the Wild West most often has been told from the point of view of White men, especially over the last 100 years, not who was the racial majority in this or that area at this or that time. Everyone knows that prior to the US pressing West the majority of the area was settled by Hispanics and Natives, that isn't the fucking argument though. The argument is about why POPULAR MEDIA about the Wild West is focused on the White experience of it. Regardless, you were only able to pick one point out of the 14 I listed to formulate any defense against and even then it's a weak one, because it entirely misses the point. The argument is about who told the history, who wrote the books, who were the famous faces and names and how the legend of the Wild West developed into what most people are familiar with today. If you can't wrap your head around the fact that as the US moved West and took control of the area the White population exploded and over time supplanted the Natives and Hispanic populations as the dominant cultural force which resulted in the tales and history of the area being told from their viewpoint, I don't know what else to tell you.

 

[The Regulator Guy]

Just went into a mine to kill a bounty. After searching his corpse and eating it (I'm a Pigman after all) I read the newspaper lying on the ground ten feet away. It had a jubilant article about the outlaw's death. News travels fast in the Weird West!

 

[Terenty]

I've been shot dead on the roof more than once. How does the game break? Only thing I've noticed is a companion getting stuck on the roof and I had to push them off.

Try shooting them with a rifle, they will go into alert for 10 seconds than it's business as usual, rinse repeat.

If they do spot you, may be you will catch a few stray bullets, but they will flock around the house and you can just throw dynamite which they ignore most of the time

Bad luck I suppose. That hasn't been the case with me. What difficulty are you playing on?

Hardest, but what do you mean it hasn't happened, what do they usually do when you hide on roofs?

 

[kangaxx]

Sorry, my post wasn't clear. I mean that they usually shoot at me even if I'm elevated. If I'm hidden on a roof then they don't, as I'd expect. But they don't just ignore me if I'm shooting or lobbing dynamite from a roof.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Sight... sometimes I wonder if devs even play their own game to fine tune it and give it any resemblance of balance

Who thought it was a good idea, even on the hardest difficulty to have a regenerating mana bar, ala Dishonored where you could spam the fucking blink like there's no tomorrow?

Now you can spam a fucking silent shot perk with 200% damage from a rooftop and literally take out whole camps

Yeah, I'd add an option for making this optional at least. edit: Upvote here: On/off option for auto-regenerating action points - Weird West (featureupvote.com) I think there's a good chance for that post-release. I'd also focus on refining the camera (though switching the default draw weapon TOGGLE to a HOLD improves things a good deal already) and AI at first.

15 hours in, and I still like this quite a lot. It's also the first game in ages that had me staying up all night.

 

[coldaqua]

how buggy is it. wait for patches?

Nothing too bad. My horse has disappeared twice now but it returns if you make camp or travel to another location on the map. I think loitering triggers this bug.

Are you Prime Junta?

Nope.

 

[Tacgnol]

I'm quite enjoying this, though my God, the controls are more unwieldy than a 1796 heavy cavalry sword.

Also I accidentally killed a couple of black folks by throwing oil lamps into their fields, they kept running into the fire and setting themselves alight and then spreading the flame to more of their crops. I just wanted to see how good the fire physics were I swear.

 

[Ismaul]

Probably get -100000 rep points for killing them.

Who knew karma and reputation systems were just a precursor to the chinese social credit system?

It's all Tim Cain's fault. Faggots, amiright?

It's the Fallout 3 version of morale system. Only thing missing is the sound Fallout 3 uses.

Fallout 3? It was cancelled, man.

 

[ColCol]

I'm enjoying it, but for a games that its at its best when its playing like an multiple option rpg/immersive sim , it suffers from giving you abilities that are more geared to pure aggression than being a tool kit like dishonored. The game should have narrowed its scope also instead of focusing on several stories, I think they would have done more interesting things...gameplay wise.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Entered a nearby settlement as Pigman™ only to be greeted by the local sheriff to fuck off you pigface, or else...

Waited till night, sneaked into town, got to my "objective", broke into her house by smashing through the window, knocked her over, skinned her fucking alive and ate her.

Aside of Bloodlines' Nosferatu clan, there's nothing quite like playing Pigman™.

 

[1451]

Disco Elysium at least managed to be actually fun/interesting

 

[The Regulator Guy]

I can confirm the previous poster who mentioned that the shotguns are crap. In most games shotguns sacrifice range for power. Here, you sacrifice range to do less damage than a revolver or rifle. That even applies to the level-4 "gold" shotgun. It's disappointing.

(Edit: Not sure about the actual damage numbers on the weapon -- but it feels ineffectual and I'm on the fourth character now.)

 

[Child of Malkav]

With shotguns you can one shot bears and sirens, but you have to be very close to them. And that's with level 1 or 2 double barrel. That's how it was in the beta at least. i haven't yet played this version but I don't think they altered the values. The semi auto shotgun does less damage but has higher rate of fire, but even with that if you're very close as in, in their face level of close you can one shot them with that as well. Again, this is how it was in beta. Once I got level 5 guns I stopped testing them as the damage was very high and I was using the bow primarily. Which can also one shot if you loose the arrow at the correct time.