Bonfire original, reprint please get permission
Author: Panda Life
As a pseudo-Western film fan, I have not paid attention to western theme literary and artistic works for a long time, basically in Hollywood in the past ten years, which films have more big-name actors I watch, but what really makes me fall in love with this kind of subject is the YYDS Coen brothers' short collection of works "The Ballad of Buster Scrugs", which has been out of control since then, and has continuously supplemented classics such as "The Seven Dragons of Courage", "Duel Yuma Town", "Wild Warrior", "Eight Wicked Men", and I think I am an introductory fan of Westerns.
Like movies and television, "Wild West" is also a popular theme in the game industry, far from Capcom's classic shooter "Red Dead Redemption" series, recently Rockstar Games's "Red Dead Redemption" series, in which you can see a lot of elements that coincide with the traditional, classic Western content, such as informal, chivalrous protagonists, bandit-ridden worldview, small towns, wilderness, looting, treasure, etc., although it can not be said that aesthetic fatigue, After all, these are the original Westerns, but the Western theme from birth to prosperity and then gradually decline, evolved to today is a complete niche category - whether it is film or video or games, if no one proposes a more thorough innovation, it would be very strange.
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Developed by WolfEye Studios and published by Devolve Digital, Weird West is such a completely different work, and the creative team from well-known games such as "Shame" and "Predator" is embarking on their new journey in the West, hoping to come up with something different to make people shine.
The campfire camp was invited to participate in an online demonstration held last week, and the production team members explained the game's storyline, system features, etc. while conducting a real-machine demonstration, which was not long enough to make people have a more intuitive impression of the basic features of the game.
Wilderness West is combined with a realistic physics environment full of detail
The innovation of Wild West is first reflected in its unique worldview. Although at first glance it seems to be a typical feud opening scene, for example, one of the 5 protagonists, the "bounty hunter", was killed by his son on the scene, and his husband was also captured, so he had to dig up his own equipment when he was in the limelight and embark on the road to revenge.
The entire scene adopts a full 3D top-down view, which can be freely rotated to adjust the observation angle, which is convenient for players to find and interact with the doors, props and small objects in the scene, and after clicking, a nine-square grid style menu will pop up, prompting the player to find something in this place, and the same screen will also prompt the luggage grid capacity.
The roof will automatically disappear after the character enters the room, and other places that are obscured by the angle rotation will be more intelligently transparent by the system, even in caves with complex terrain, there is no need to worry about affecting the battle because of the rotation of the perspective, and the introduction of the transparent function does not weaken the overall atmosphere creation, which is a more reassuring side.
However, in the demo video, I also saw that some scenes must go through a careful search to find the best way to sneak in, otherwise they can only enter from the main entrance to fight a large group of enemies, and then the player is taught by the game's strict numerical settings, and the ending is often not so good.
The landscape and costumes are typical of the second half of the 19th century, the indispensable classic character sheriff appears in the first cutscene, the role played is still so useless, the tragedy has already occurred before arriving at the scene, forcing the "bounty hunter" to save his husband and avenge his son on his own.
Judging from the nearly 40-minute "Bounty Hunter" demo, this mission line still follows a more traditional plot design approach, after all, "revenge" can be said to be one of the eternal themes of Westerns. So what I saw was a flattened western sandbox ARPG with a top-down view. The protagonist collects items and ammunition from NPCs, and is guided by NPCs to specific locations, and may encounter wild dogs while camping on the way.
Exploring enemy field camps is reminiscent of the basic gameplay of the Assassin's Creed series, with maps showing enemies' field of view, patrolling fixed areas, talking to other enemies, and so on, and the classic tactic of throwing debris to create sounds to attract the attention of the enemy is still valid.
Therefore, theoretically, at least when controlling the character of "Bounty Hunter", the player should adopt the strategy of touching it as long as he can, and then pulling out his gun and fighting with the big man when luffy is ready. The battle scene in the field is divided into very complex areas by terrain, and each area is usually 2 to 5 enemies, who are either talking or patrolling. Players either sneak in and grope forward bit by bit, or directly use explosives to open the way.
In terms of battle value setting, at least in the demo demo is still relatively strict, the player is not "Rambo" can stand with multiple enemies without scruples superman, quietly in the distance with a rifle headshot, forcing the last to enter the fierce duel of pistol shooting is the best strategy.
Even so, I was very impressed with the difficulty of the game. Taking the "Bounty Hunter" as an example, the HP limit is 100 points, and at least 2 or 30 HP will be killed by a straggler hit, not only that, even the most common stragglers will use bunkers to reduce the probability of being hit, can fly, can move to avoid bullets, and will join forces with accomplices to make raids. When facing more than three enemies at the same time, if there is no explosives, oil barrels and other mechanisms available for use around, it often means a hard battle or even a repetition of the file.
Fortunately, there are still many combat aids and convenient scene interaction mechanisms in the game, such as the player's weapon will pull out an indicator line when aiming, if there are enemies on the path, this line segment will turn red, which is very easy to identify.
In addition, scene props such as explosives, oil lamps, and leaked kerosene are very useful, and they may be considered an ordinary decoration in the scene from the appearance before being triggered, but in fact, they can chemically react with the bullets fired by the player, bringing unexpected help to the battle process.
This is actually a reflection of the very real and vivid physical environment of "Wild West". Although the modeling style of the game itself is typical of cartoon textures and does not take the simulation route, whether it is the proportion of the characters, the size of the building or the depth of the landscape, it will make people have a very strong sense of realism. In addition to the excellent ballistic trajectory and collision impact when firing, the details of the interaction with various small objects on the map are also impressive, such as the creator's special demonstration of throwing a glass bottle out and immediately shooting it in the air, or throwing a wooden bucket filled with water out to extinguish the fire.
As you can imagine, these are only a small part of the real physical interaction in the game, and there should be more complex and changeable interactive mechanisms waiting for players to discover in the official version of the game.
Decorate the worldview with mysticism
In addition to the main demonstration of the character "Bounty Hunter", we also saw a brief battle screen of the other 4 other characters in other live video provided by the official, combined with some special exploration scenes and events, which very intuitively showed another major feature of the game in addition to the hardcore and classic Western style - "Weird".
Simply put, this is a fantasy-added Western story, in which players face not only fierce bandits armed with guns, but also otherworldly creatures such as wizards, ghouls, zombies, and banshees who use magic, who, like those human bandits, are a huge obstacle to the player's investigation of the truth.
But on the other hand, the 5 master kilometers also have characters who can use these mysterious powers, such as the "Pigman" who looks strange because of the huge curse, but also becomes thick-skinned; the "guardians" who are responsible for finding out the root cause of the evil qi leakage, they are the ancient races that have lived in this land for generations, and they can use the mysterious power to strengthen their own bows;
There's also the mystic cowboy, who can transform into a werewolf with both speed and power, and finally a witch who can predict the future, with the most powerful mana of the 5 characters, and can even change what's going to happen before the sun sets.
Such a class setting not only has an impact on the traditional western adventure story worldview, but also becomes richer and more diverse than the game's combat process. For example, witches have the ability to teleport and can move to the other side of the enemy's hiding bunker to release magic; werewolf cowboys (personally think this idea is cool) can combine the advantages of close combat and long-range shooting; and the guardian is a master of using bows and arrows, combined with magical energy, can burst out powerful powers.
And their enemies certainly don't sit still, as the adventure progresses, we see more complex and varied enemy combinations, such as bandits + wizards, zombies + fanatical pagans, visually giving players full impact and freshness.
summary
This brief online viewing session apparently showed only a fairly limited portion of Wild West, and there are many other things I haven't mentioned in the text because there is still too little information. For example, the random events that happen when entering the wild campground map, the items collected, and how much the random content in the storyline of the 5 protagonists will affect the main story, etc., I believe that before the official release of the game in the fall of 2021, we should have enough time to learn more about the game.