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Weird West comes from a new studio, WolfEye, but several of its members are famous for having created and worked on such immersive sim juggernauts as Dishonored and Prey while they were at Arkane. Weird West’s isometric camera may give you a new outlook on the genre, but in many ways, this is the follow-up fans have been waiting for. Ripe for experimenting with its many interlocking systems, Weird West is also prime “how to” material. In this introductory guide, we’ll help you get going with some key tips that should keep you alive in the weirdest of all westerns.
You can find some upgrade stations and services around the world, not just in Grackle
Early on in your first adventure as Jane, you’ll head into the bustling town of Grackle. It’s loaded with shops and services, but many of the important merchants and upgrade stations you need can be found around the world too. Sometimes this will be in areas that are friendly, like a wandering band of salespeople offering new health items and weapons. Other times, you may have to sneak into a hostile area to “borrow” their tanning station to craft new vests (armor), but just understand that when your pockets are full of loot or you need to upgrade your revolver, the sometimes far-off town of Grackle is not your only option.
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Now Playing: Weird West | Road to Weird West: Episode 5
Prioritize buying a horse early to reduce travel times (and dodge some threats)
One thing you should get early in Grackle, however, is your own horse. Traveling across the open world happens on a map screen, and though this only takes a few seconds for you, it takes several hours–if not days–for the anti-heroes as whom you’ll play. That may leave you vulnerable to roaming bandits, packs of wolves, shrieking wraiths, or any other such horrors. Buying a horse from the stable in Grackle means all traveling is much faster and reduces the likelihood of you running into a random event. Not all random events are bad, but normally you can elect to evade the bad ones, and a horse makes that easier.
While you can steal a horse whenever you see one, this behaves more like a rental. The horse will flee once you arrive at your next destination, leaving you high and dry. Buying your own horse means always having a quick and safer way to travel.
Be thankful for friends, beware of vendettas
The world of Weird West is impressively reactive. One of the ways the game’s cause and effect system reveals itself is in the allies and enemies you make along the way. Save a stranger from certain death? They may become your Friend For Life and arrive in the middle of some future showdown to save your hide.
On the flipside, killing a gang leader may cause one of their cronies to swear vengeance. They’ll try to flee the scene of your bloodbath, and if they’re able to get away, they’ll lie in wait, springing on you at some unknown time in the future, perhaps when you can least afford to be jumped like that. While killing a gang leader first can be helpful–some gang members will flee and not plot their revenge–always understand the risk. Some people hold a serious grudge.
Your tools won’t last forever
Weapons can be upgraded, but you need not worry about them degrading. Shovels, skinning tools, and pickaxes, however, break after enough use. You’ll need shovels for digging up treasure (or the bodies holding it), skinning tools to skin hunted animals, and pickaxes to mine rare gems that you can sell to ore buyers in major towns. These are important to have at all times for these reasons, but try to either have an extra or, if you can’t spare a slot, look around your area for extras, ideally before your tools break down. NPCs are liable to leave these tools hanging out in mines, graveyards, or anywhere else about town.
Retrieve your arrows after you shoot them
For those seeking a silent attack, the bow is a great choice. But ammo is always limited in Weird West, which means picking your shots is important. Whether or not you hit your target, you can retrieve your arrows–assuming you can find them. Though it can be tricky to track down your arrows after a shootout, once an area is clear, that’s a great time to dig for rare loot anyway, so you may as well spend a moment trying to find your arrows too.
Buy a deposit box at the Grackle bank to unlock extra inventory slots
You’ll start the game with 48 inventory slots, and there’s plenty of certified “junk” you’ll want to pick up to sell to stores, not to mention all the food to carry, weapons to holster, and passive ability cards to find and hold onto. These things all share your one inventory, so to conserve space, buy a safety deposit box at the bank in Grackle. For $150–or about the price of one completed bounty–you’ll unlock an extra 32 slots. This is more like a personal cache that stays in town, so you can’t access these items while you’re on the road, but it’s great for stashing ores or other valuables for which you have plans but don’t need quite yet.
Towns shut down at night, so wait until morning to shop… or use the five-finger discount
When the sun goes down, shopkeepers will head to bed. That means your shopping spree will have to wait a few in-game hours. You can loiter (pass time), sleep (pass time and regain Action Points), or, if you’re not worried about your character’s moral compass going busted, you can use the quiet and cover of darkness to check out each store’s terrific sale prices–100% off all inventory. Yes, stealing is an option, and made easier at night when no one is around to watch you do it. Note, though, you’ll often need a specific key, which you can usually find in the daytime while the shop is open. Also note that your companions have their own moral compass to follow, and your ne’er-do-well goings-on may upset your pals.
Enemies usually won’t see you above ground level–unless they’re up there too
Level design reigns supreme in an immersive sim, and that’s true in Weird West like it is in all worthwhile games of this nature. When standing above enemies, like on a roof, they won’t see or hear you. You can use this to set traps, jump on them and knock them out, or sneak past them–choices are plentiful. Just be aware that enemies at or above your level–say, on a rooftop patio across the yard–are liable to spot you if you’re within their vision range. You can track all of this data on the mini-map. If an NPC has no vision cone, they’re on a different level from you. If they do have a vision cone, stay out of it!
Bounties are the fastest way to make money
The early game demands a lot of money from you, and you won’t easily amass the necessary funds by selling leftover spoons and forks. The fastest way to deepen your pockets is to complete bounties (orange missions in the mission log). The bounty board repopulates every few in-game days, and each bounty tends to go for $100-150–sometimes more. Since your eventual horse costs around $300, the deposit box sets you back $150, and an early mission requires you to hand over $300, the cost of early progress can seem steep. But by taking out a few early bounties, you’ll have all that settled with money leftover.
Side quests can be found all over
If your bounty board is ever exhausted and you’re between main story missions due to one prerequisite or another, you can enhance your wallet and figurative moral compass even more with the game’s many side quests. Visit secondary locations, stop on the road when you’re given the choice, and talk to everyone you come across. You never know when someone needs help freeing their husband from jail–or just freeing their coat from a closet.
This isn’t your basic twin-stick shooter, so get creative
As mentioned, this is an immersive sim, not a shooter. Though guns-blazing is always an option, the game is likely going to be more enjoyable if you solve problems using your head as much as your rifle or boot knife. Shoot out lamps to spread grassfires, kick corrosive oil barrels onto unsuspecting enemies, persuade enemies to fight by your side, or find new ways to overcome obstacles that maybe no one else has thought of. Once I laid a trap for a bounty, then went exploring for loot, only to be alerted that my target had died off-screen, well down the street. None of the game’s several protagonists resembles Agent 47 in body, but he is with them all in spirit.
Use save scumming often
Not sure what a particular action will result in? Thinking of trying some risky rescue maneuver to free a friend from harm? Want to see what happens if you just straight up kill the sheriff? With Weird West’s welcoming quick save feature and several save slots, you are free to experiment as much as you’d like. When things go sour, just revert to an old save. Save scumming is an encouraged part of the game. The game’s systems are a well-oiled machine, but they’re still susceptible to having a wrench thrown in and causing chaos. Throw that proverbial wrench, see how it goes, then fix things by reverting to a moment more under control.
