When Raphael Colantonio and Julien Roby left Arkane to form WolfEye Studios in 2018, they brought with them all the experience of creating immersive gameplay and unique worlds like Dishonored and Prey. This twenty-five-person studio assembled with a goal to make complex immersive simulation games with bold art design and ultimate player freedom. That vision is on full display in its upcoming debut game Weird West.
The golden age of westerns may be gone, but if games like Red Dead Redemption 2 are any indication, there's still much potential for the future of the genre. Weird West, though, is in a particular niche subgenre of westerns, infusing the western landscape with horror elements as seen in works like Jonah Hex and Deadlands. WolfEye's debut release will take prospective players on a mystery-filled adventure through the western frontier with five distinct narratives that weave together in an intrinsic tale of western horror.
Players will feel a sense of familiarity with Wild West's modernized top-down RPG from games like the original Fallout series (it even has a map system inspired by said series), but that's where the similarities end as this sprawling western adventure leans more into the immersive simulation-style fans of Dishonored and Prey have come to love. Wild West is a game that encourages players to explore the world and the gameplay in a continual quest to find new ways to interact with everything in the landscape of the western penny dreadful.
Weird West's Five Act Tale
The five-act story structure was around even before Gustav Freytag first showcased his pyramid, and Weird West makes that structure a literal form as its story is told throughout five sequential characters known as "Journeys." The Bounty Hunter, Pigman, Protector, Werewolf, and Future Seer each tell a part of the wild west mystery as players progress through the individual heroes' journeys to discover what strange happenings have mysteriously bound their fates.
However, the core of the game is centered around immersive simulation for players to create their own experience. As president and creative director Raphael Colantonio recently discussed, the game is designed to have its overarching narrative along with the individual heroes' narratives while also being varied based on players' decisions. Like how guests of the parks in Westworld each affect the narratives they experience by their choices, Weird West players will see the world respond to their inputs with various changes in the world.
So playing violently aggressive may lead to players having a bounty placed on them, but it could also bring exclusive members into their posse. Alternatively, players with a very positive reputation might have discounts at stores. Whether players opt to execute a bounty unnecessarily or if they let an enemy escape an encounter, those situations can echo throughout the Weird West's AI conductor. This nuanced approach carries over into simple game navigation, such as moving a barrel next to a fence to scale it for a stealthy approach or simply tossing bottles up to shoot them out of the air. This extremely expressive gameplay approach takes things Dishonored fans loved and expands on them greatly.
WolfEye's entire focus with Weird West is to create a sandbox where players can find new ways to express themselves as they explore the frontier. Similar to how previous games the studio's staff has worked on saw players coming up with new ways to do things the developers didn't even realize would, so too does Weird West give players that opportunity while telling an intriguing western mystery that aims to subvert the cliches of the genre.
Weird West is set to release Fall 2021 on PS4, Xbox, and PC. Screen Rant was provided with access to a private presentation for the purpose of this preview.