Evil West Early Impressions

Initial Release Date: November 22, 2022

Developer: Flying Wild Hog

Engine: Unreal Engine 4

Publisher: Focus Entertainment

Mode: Multiplayer Coop, Solo

Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows

Genres: Third-Person Shooter, Role-playing Adventure

Flying Wild Hog is on a roll as of late. Evil West will be the third game this year I played from this underrated developer. I played Shadow Warrior 3 and Trek to Yumi this year and now their spaghetti western Evil West. I played through the first three Chapters of Evil West and so far it’s really fun.

Evil West is a spaghetti western third person action adventure melee shooter full of cheesy 80’s dialogue with plenty monsters and vampires to kill. If you played third person games during the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 Evil West is right up your alley. It takes inspiration from that time period when games were mostly about gameplay and not invested into story or innovation.

You play as Jesse Rentier son of William Rentier who runs a monster hunting agency in during the nineteenth century. At the start of Evil West, Jesse along with his sidekick Edgar Gravenor are on the trail of catching a vampire named Chester Morgan. Evil West is a linear based game featuring a gameplay loop of linear maps with cutscenes that start missions.

In 01 The Questionable Cargo mission Evil West introduces it’s basic gameplay mechanics and weapons as you hunt down Chester Morgan. Right off the bat you can see influences from Gears of War and God of War 2018 within Evil West’s gameplay mechanics just with a spaghetti western coat of paint over top.

Jesse Rentier can hero punch, cannonball punch, shoot his pistol or the more accurate rifle on Sanguisuges monsters. The Gauntlet is his main weapon though. You can interrupt mini-boss attacks that show glowing weak-points before they attack you. Gameplay is fast and action based yet forgiving and easy to get. Evil West isn’t a complicated game to pick and look cool slaying monsters.

I can’t stress enough that Evil West’s strength at it’s core is it’s fun dynamic gameplay. Just after three chapters I have slain many different types of creatures with style. Hell, you can uppercut a Infected Vessel (grunt creature) and juggle it with Jesse’s rifle mid-air. Granted you have to unlock abilities to juggle as I did early on in 03 The First Spark mission.

Visuals are nothing impressive early on. I am playing Evil west on my Xbox Series X in performance mode. Framerate is a solid 60 fps at least. Graphics for the most part seem filled with blurry textures all over the place. However, I do love Evil West’s art design and locations as it lends a real sense of a spaghetti western.

Music is okay I guess and the voice acting reminds me of something from Bullet Storm, Vanquish or Gears of War….pure cheese. Some people hate cheesy dialogue some don’t mind it. I fall in the latter because I grew up watching “great” films such as Big Trouble in Little China and Robocop. With that said, the writing early on isn’t good.

Evil West’s presentation and story sorta reminds me of The Order 1886. Remember that game Playstation 4 owners? The story through three chapters really isn’t even worth writing about at this point. I am focusing more on how good the actual gameplay is which seems pretty addicting early on.

To recap, visuals aren’t good. Writing isn’t good. The gameplay is great and hand’s down Evil West’s driving force behind it. If the gameplay improves as I progress through the cheesy story I will be impressed despite Evil West’s obvious shortcomings. If you want to watch my gameplay check out Evil West Video Playlist. Thank you for reading – Jason