Both WW and Deathloop have been a breath of fresh air. These guys simply know how to take the philosophy and evolve it, just very interesting and elegant video games.
The perspective really did a disservice to this game. Yeah, it makes the shooting and covering pretty fun, and that'd be great if this was some sort of isometric Call of Juarez Gunslinger, but using the systems, powers, throwables etc... with this viewpoint and with these controls was just a pain. The pleasure of an immersive sim comes from the immersion, feeling part of the world, understanding it, using it, and having it react how you expect. The whole genre is based around planning and execution. But to make these plans, and to pull them off, you have to enter this flow state where you can just think something and do it. If you're fighting the controls or having trouble understanding what you're even seeing, you'll never be able to use a game's systems to its full potential. It's a real shame, because there are some good ideas in this game (along with some not-so-good ones), but the foundation it's built on cheapens the entire experience.
I enjoyed this review and you put into words many of the feelings I had while playing, especially the part about character abilities - I too felt little incentive to experiment and found it was much more effective to silently snipe enemies or knock them out. I also ran into the trouble of having way too much ammo and money on all my characters and never felt challenged by slim resources due to my habit to scour areas for supplies. However overall I enjoyed my time with the game and it really stuck with me, I especially appreciated the art direction as it's very much reminiscent of Dishonored 1's heavy stylisation, which I really missed in Arkane's later titles. (SPOILERS AHEAD) However in regards to the narrative, while I agree the pigman's story is by far the most impactful in a very real way, I do believe the game has a core theme - life, death, and immortality. This can be seen most clearly with the duality of Essex Mast and the player-character's true identity Aleph who, in my opinion, are both the real protagonists of the game in equal measure. Essex is a man convinced fully of the finality of death and has made it his life's goal to circumvent it, whereas Aleph and their cohorts have lived for so long life has lost all meaning - to the point they are considering ending the entire universe if it means ending their personal existences alongside it. Essex doesn't possess the same perspective as Aleph, only knowing the primal fear of the void, therefore he is driven to seek immortality and is willing to do whatever it takes. He doesn't know the price he would pay upon his hypothetical success, as unfortunately for him humans are evolved to die and we could not cope if existence went on without end. Human lives are short, messy, punctuated with both tragedy and beauty, and always without fail come to an end - this is why the only way for Aleph to regain their mortality is to live out 5 brief, imperfect, and chaotic experiences, to perceive a broad spectrum of what it means to be human and what it means to live. Human life is inherently mortal therefore to be immortal is to become something other than human, and by regaining your humanity you regain your mortality. I think this is also why the other characters and themes take a bit of a back seat as they are but stops on the road of your whirlwind tour of human experiences, they primarily seek to service and frame Aleph and Essex's narrative of life, death, and immortality. However the question of whether or not the game would have been improved by a focus on one of the more tangible themes the game presents like you proposed is definitely a pressing dillema. From my personal experience it's narrative did have an effect on me, I suffer from clinically diagnosed thanatophobia so I strongly related to the core theme and Essex's character. And while stories about the negative effects of immortality have been done before, the presentation of it in Weird West was genuinely effective and unique for me at least. However I can also understand that a more tangible and raw core theme might have had that same effect on a wider audience. Regardless of whether or not the game could have been improved, Weird West will definitely stick with me for a while and I'm excited to see more from Wolfeye. However personally Weird West works so well as a self contained complete concept I hope they do not follow up with a sequel, as for me it would dilute the original's potency. And if you actually read this: Great video, keep it up, I'm surprised you're not more popular.
My favorite implementation of the solution to the problem of voiceactors disassociating a read from the imagination of the player of a given character is in the game Warhammer 40K Mechanicus. If you didn'T see/hear it yet, I highy recommend to give it a look^^
five minutes in and i can't help but agree with you! this game gives you a large toolset but actively using it feels like a chore when most of it is inconsequential or when going guns-blazing works just fine
the werewolf paragraph hit. the game does have a focus on consequences of actions with branching story parts, the friend and foe system, and reputation but none of it felt important. being the pigman made me drop the game. i thought i'd have to navigate the world as an enemy to most, but instead had to do a single sidequest to make people treat the character as a normal person, albeit very condescendingly. if i played the werewolf, i s ild've been even more bothered. i think lowering my expectations could've helped, but this would've been better off being framed as a really interactive action game instead of immmersive sim.
Great vid, hopefully you upload more lmao. As for the game, mostly agree, at times amazing, but by the end a bit stale. As a first for a new indie studio, definetly a great start and I cant wait for what they do next
I really liked the game but had to put it down since I wasn’t enjoying the top down shooter style gameplay and the perspective. Would have much preferred a closer third person ish view.
