Blood West Review

Player(s): 1
Extra Features: N/A

Blood West is an RPG-like FPS focused on stealth. The game is developed by HyperStrange and published by New Blood Interactive. Even though it has the look of your more modern retro style shooters, this is not your typical boomer shooter. It very much distances itself with its overall immersive gameplay and focus on stealth. You can get SO very lost in this game with all the exploration and item collecting you’ll be doing. It’s really a great experience and one that I highly recommend to FPS fans looking for an RPG shooter.

You play as an undead gunslinger that must break the curse placed on him in order to free his soul. You must wander the lands of the old west in search of answers. This game has the look of Hunt: Shodown but with a retro twist. Enemies and characters are all pixelated like an old school shooter but it’s like a smooth pixelation that makes it look more modern and unique. The game reminds me of a Deus Ex games mixed with many other games. It definitely has the immersion that I experience in a Deus Ex along with the same focus on stealth. I see a bunch of other game comparisons online also such as STALKER and King’s Field, but I can’t comment on them since I never have played them.

You start out with basically nothing and have to gain equipment and upgrade your character. From the very start, the game teaches you the basics of stealth, such as using a thrown rock to distract an enemy so that you can get by him. Before long, you get a melee weapon and learn about sneaking up on enemies to kill them from behind. The game has no true stealth kill animations. Whenever you sneak up behind an enemy, the attack that you deliver is like a critical attack that will often kill the enemy.

Along with melee weapons, you also get a fair share of projectile weapons as well, such as pistols, shotguns, rifles, bows, etc. Just like many rpgs, you can find good weapons in the environment or buy them from merchants. Blood West is so very loot-based, nearly like a Borderlands. You’ll want to explore offbeat areas quite a bit since there are often hidden valuables in secret places. This game has TONS of hidden items to pick up and hidden areas to find. You can spend HOURS just exploring each open world to find hidden areas.

The combat in the game is kind of a mixed bag. Just like a Dark Souls, you have your health meter and stamina meter. Running and attacking take stamina, which replenishes after a while. Like I said, Blood West is very stealth-based and once you break that stealth, it can be hard to recover. Melee attacks are pretty slow and consume a lot of stamina. Projectile attacks can be slow and it takes a while to reload depending on your gun type. You are very much rewarded for precision aiming. A single headshot from the pistol can instantly kill an enemy. Body shots can often take three shots.

You really don’t have to worry much about ammo and overall healing since those type of items are found throughout the environments and you can also simply buy them. You’ll be picking up so much stuff that it will start to crowd your (very) limited inventory. Thankfully, you can sell anything that you pick up. One thing I don’t like about the inventory is that it is very much set up for a mouse and keyboard. Trying to move inventory with a controller can be quite cumbersome. Whenever an item is highlighted, a description menu appears that can often block your inventory to where it can be hard to manage. When selling to merchants, you move you inventory items to their inventory menu, which is kind of hard to do on controller. The controls for inventory has shortcuts using the shoulder buttons but it can all still get confusing.

The game has a variety of enemy types to fight ranging from your standard mining zombies to enemies that carry guns. Each enemy type has its own strengths and weakness, which the game tells you about in files spread throughout the environment. Enemies can get quite aggressive in this game once they spot you. It can be hard to get away. Once a crowd spots you, it’s so very easy to die. On its normal difficulty, the game handicaps you for dying. There is a curse placed on your character that lowers your stamina permanently. There is a way to recover from this through a rare item that can be found, but with all the deaths that I went through while trying to learn the game, the curse system can get frustrating since it makes things even harder upon resurrection. You resurrect at a totem and get to keep everything you had when you died. Thankfully, the game has a “Story” difficulty that removes the curses upon death. The game is still just as hard even with the bonuses it gives you on the easier difficulty.

The hard gameplay is very much welcome however – I just don’t like the punishment for dying. The game is challenging in a good way overall. It forces you to take a step back and assess your situation before charging into a fight. Just like a Deus Ex, you want to concentrate on stealth. The stealth in the game is “good enough” for me. There is a meter that appears on the bottom of the screen once an enemy has you in their line of vision. If the meter completely fills then the enemy has officially “seen” you and will attack.

For fans of stealth-based FPS’s, I’d highly recommend Blood West. The game is highly immersive and atmospheric all the way through its very long campaign. The game encourages exploration and you can get so very easily lost for many hours just exploring each open world. This game will last you for a great deal of time and is well worth its asking price. If you’re expecting a boomer shooter, then you will be disappointed since the game is more like an rpg where you slowly work your way through the campaign.

The Good:
+ Very fun gameplay and exploration that you can get totally lost in
+ Great atmosphere
+ Unique overall stylized retro look

The Bad:
- The curse/handicap for dying is pretty severe for a game where you’re constantly dying
- Inventory system is too PC mouse/keyboard focused, which is bad for controller players