Earlier this year, Arkane Studios disappointed on Xbox Game Pass with Raidfall, a game that dropped much of the studio’s immersive sim expertise for a lesser multiplayer adventure. But what if I told you that the man who founded Arkane and helped create series like Dishonored left the studio before Raidfall and created an excellent immersive sim that is also available on Xbox Game Pass?
Well, it actually happened, and the game in question is Weird West.
In March 2022, former Arkane Studios founder Raphael Colantonio released Weird West under the newly formed WolfEye Studios. While it swaps out the third-person perspective for an isometric one, Weird West is an enjoyable supernatural Western game that manages to tap into the immersive sim design philosophy that has created many of the games that Colantonio has done excellent work on.
Unfortunately, Weird West is leaving Xbox Game Pass on September 30th, so we recommend you give it a try before it’s gone.
embracing the strange
Surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of games set in the Wild West, and even fewer based on scary, supernatural elements like Weird West. The game world is full of supernatural cults, magic, and creatures such as pigs, zombies, and werewolves. Its story is told across five separate missions, one of which follows a retired bounty hunter whose child is killed and husband kidnapped, who sets out on an adventure to get them back.
The individual stories of all five playable characters in Weird West are emotionally captivating and quite different from each other. This is very noticeable as you come to the second story, which turns a human into a pigman. Still, this is a living and reactive world, so decisions made and characters killed in an earlier character’s journey have an impact on later characters’ adventures; You can also find and recruit characters you played as before.
This is where Weird West’s immersive sim roots begin to shine, as many of the emergent narrative moments with impact feel crafted by the player. This leads into the gameplay, which is done from an isometric perspective. Like Arkane’s best games, there are always multiple solutions to any objective, and playing with guns is not always the best option. Instead, players are encouraged to wander around quietly, sweet-talk characters, and even use some magical abilities if the playable characters allow them to progress during a character’s journey. But can learn.
With these more dynamic elements, isometric perspective, and narrative focus, Weird West can sometimes feel like an immersive sim as much as a CRPG. Thus, this could be an enjoyable follow-up to Baldur’s Gate 3 for players finally coming out of that long RPG. At the very least, if you enjoy games that emphasize player freedom while also finding new ways to influence the game’s overarching narrative, you’ll enjoy Weird West.
When the game was first released it had some technical issues and rough edges, so it went under the radar. However, most of them have been smoothed out by now. The post-launch update has fixed most of the major bugs and improved character progression, targeting, and companion and stealth systems, adding more depth and UI clarity to them. Weird West is in its best shape yet, but still feels as different and strange as ever.
