I am always craving for more things in the Weird West genre, and here we have a game that is named after the genre, so I was very hyped for it. Along with the fact it was going to be an immersive sim from one of the Arkane co-founders, it was setting up to be probably really cool. However, I could not bring myself to play anymore than a couple hours.

Most immersive sims are first person with cleverly designs levels with multitudes of ways to figure how to progress. Weird West does have many ways to figure something else, but it lacks the same interactivity that first person I-sims usually have. A lot of the the levels however feel similar to overworld asset reuse, some of them are probably well thought out, but the ones I saw don't reach the heights of its peers.

With the camera being top down it definitely seems like they were trying to be more CRPG/ARPG, and it shows. I don't hate trying to fuse I-sims and the top down perspective, but the gameplay just feels really clunky. Switching weapons feels really weird, along with using powers. Melee is just downright unfun to try to do. All that not even mentioning the most basic combat action of shooting feels terrible.

The story also never really dragged me in. I can see I-sim protags being a blank slate for your many options and paths you choose, but most of the ones I have played, Corvo in Dishonoured 1 is the only real blank slate that I can remember. I only got to the first character in this game and they are literally nothing.

Overall the idea is really fucking solid, but it just plays so clunky with an uninteresting story.