These caves are dark, dank, and smell of sulfur. The only company you have are its demonic denizens and the deep tones of a Mr. Ron Perlman.
West of Dead
Developer: Upstream Arcade
Platform: PC & Xbox One
West of Dead is the debut game from studio Upstream Arcade where you play a mysterious undead cowboy as you fight your way through a world brought to life in a style that’s evocative of Mike Mignola’s style, assuming it’s not being done by the man himself. The game itself is due for a spring release but the developers have released a beta that allows you to go through two of the first “floors” in this upcoming roguelike.
Being of that genre, West of Dead actually has a good mix of two of the biggest games in that scene. When it comes to the actual combat, the game has a very Binding of Isaac format where you’re going from room to room clearing them of enemies until you reach the exit. In-between runs, the game has a loop that’s more akin to a Dead Cells where you stop by a (very) similar cast of NPCs one of which cashes in a currency to unlock new weapons or abilities, and another who refills your health. The two formats combined work pretty well from what I could see, I just wish the little hub area itself had a bit more personality to it.
In regards to combat, the game plays very similarly to any twin-stick shooter you may have played in the past. You can easily take cover by simply moving behind an object or even sliding into it and your character will pop out to take shots at the pull of a trigger. Everything felt pretty smooth and it felt pretty great peppering an enemy with pistol shots before closing the gap by sliding across the casket I was hiding behind and finishing off the enemy with an up-close shotgun blast.
The game features a pretty varied supply of creatures to fight against and as with any game of the genre, I wondered how much are in the full game. Immediately I encountered zombies of a sort that would either rush me or fight from a distance with guns or TNT, and this eventually evolved into demonic dogs and an ogre who tossed a massive blade. These fights eventually culminated with a hectic fight against an absolutely massive wendigo that forced you to play smart in the tight room you were in. Besides the monsters crawling around the caves you explore, you’ll also come across NPCs who may need your help. In the beta I so far encountered these folk three times and each one spit a quick piece of dialog because the game told me I had taken on a burden and needed to kill ten enemies to remove it; oh and I would die in a single hit as well. It’s something that would have perhaps been nice to have communicated because taking on the quest immediately ruined a solid run I had going as in the next room I was immediately ganked by a dog before I could even react, effectively ending my current run when I was right near the end. It also brings to question if all side-quests are like this in the future game, or if there’s more variety and if it’s the latter does it basically mean you never know what you get until you accept it? If that’s the case, it’s a degree of randomness I’m not sure would be fun even in this genre.
West of Dead features an interesting mechanic where certain rooms are cloaked in darkness and there are lanterns scattered throughout the room you can light. Now you can fight perfectly fine in the darkness, but you’ll have to manually take your shots and properly aim at enemies. On the other hand, you can activate a lantern which not only gives you auto-aim on enemies within the light, but also stuns them for a moment. The downside to this is these lanterns are usually out in the open, causing you to have to decide to risk your cover for a stronger combat position. It’s a neat bit of strategy that adds a layer of depth to encounters.
Going back to the roguelike aspect of the game, permadeath is obviously a thing but you do have permanent upgrades you’re working towards. You’ll earn your typical gold (in this case, iron) that you can spend on shops hidden in levels and finishing combat rooms will reward you with sin. Now sin is basically the equivalent of cells in Dead Cells, where you’ll spend them with a witch in-between levels to unlock things like better health flasks, new abilities, or guns. A minor annoyance of the sin system however is that whatever amount of sin you have has to be completely dumped into the item you select. So if you had twelve sin and wanted to dump half into a gun and the other half into an ability you’d be unable to do so. I know it’s a minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things but it’s the way I’ve always played games of the genre that had a similar system. Besides that, you’ll also be able to upgrade your base stats (health/gun damage/ability damage) by finding totems throughout the levels. While again being very reminiscent of how Dead Cells plays, I had a hard time imagining how these will help create any sort of build synergy with the weapons and abilities but I suppose that’s a question better left for the full release.
My time with the West of Dead beta was short but sweet, and as a big fan of the genre, I’m eager to see how the full game looks when it releases on PC and Xbox One later this spring.
