Evil West review

Evil West blasts onto Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One tomorrow, offering up a blend of famed Old West tropes with challenging vampire and monster slaying in linear story-focused gameplay. Here are our thoughts.

Flying Wild Hog launches its third game of 2022 tomorrow in the form of Evil West, which, just like Trek to Yomi that was released earlier this year, is another game that seems to be offering a different experience to the studio's famed Shadow Warrior series. Evil West is a story-driven affair with a deep focus on character progression and challenging combat — and there's not an off-the-cuff gag in sight!

Evil West gameplay overview trailer

Being quite the fan of horror-esque storylines, undead creatures, and the fairly brutal world of the old Frontier, Evil West caught my attention pretty quickly when it was announced. There is something about the stylised, skill-based combat that had me yearning for a new adventure, and the linear story-driven approach was the icing on the cake. After thoroughly enjoying Flying Wild Hog's Shadow Warrior 3 earlier this year, though, I did have my reservations as to whether this would remain a more serious story, or whether it would begin to devolve into an Old West rootin'-tootin'-and-shootin' version of Shadow Warrior. I'm pleased to say, not that there is anything wrong with the Shadow Warrior approach, that I've found Evil West to be its own beast, with a grounded storyline, interesting characters, and enough character progression to keep things interesting.

We step into the boots of Jesse Rentier, a monster hunter and heir of the Rentier Institution — the Old West's only line of defence against the vampires preying on the populace — and son of the Institute's current director, William Rentier. The game starts off pretty much as expected; Jesse hunts down some bloodsuckers in a few daunting locations, we get to learn the game's basic mechanics, and then we head back to the Institute with the knowledge that we can probably do an alright job at keeping the Old West safe. Unsurprisingly, everything crumbles into absolute chaos, and one rather ambitious vampire begins raising an army of monstrosities by toying with the evolution process of the vampiric change. What was pleasantly surprising, though, is how quickly everything changed, and Jesse, who only wants to work in the field fighting evil, is thrust into a situation where he needs to become a more leader-worthy figure.

While the 'hero' story is far from an original plotline, Jesse already possesses the skills and mindset to hold his own in a fight when we join his story. It's his character development that had me wanting to find out what the next plot twist would offer. Jesse is a gruff, no-nonsense kind of guy, who would rather go and get things done himself than rely on others, but as the vampire threat grows, the game begins to drip-feed him with learning opportunities with the help of the people around him. His closest friend Edgar Gravenor is a ~~retired~~ now un-retired hunter that helps Jesse understand the realities of the life they live, and also serves as the second player's character when you play in co-op. Time hasn't been my greatest ally, so I'm yet to finish the game, but I feel the story is pretty well-balanced so far, if only for one gripe. At times, things can become pretty disjointed. In levels that you travel to with other characters, and subsequently, leave behind for whatever reason, I've found that they can just appear ahead of you at the next story intersection. It doesn't matter that you had to climb, jump, run, gun, and die to get to that spot, that character, no matter their fighting prowess, somehow managed to reach the next area before you unharmed. It's thrown me on more than one occasion, but it's not stopped me from becoming invested in the overarching narrative. The drip-fed storyline isn't the only part of Evil West that gives the game a natural feeling of growth, though, as the character progression follows a similar style.

Flying Wild Hog's masterful approach to creature design has definitely been put to good use here, with monstrosities coming in all shapes and sizes. While the basic hulking, exploding and spitting variants are of course used — what kind of monster game would this be without those? — there are also tons of others that pose major threats and require quick thinking and strategy changes to take down, especially if you're like me and stick the game on its 'Evil' difficulty from the off. As I said before, character progression is drip-fed throughout, and even when you get over halfway through the story, it'll still be introducing additional weapon types, tools, and monsters. It works really well, I think, and offers a natural feeling to the progression.

Each weapon can be equipped with three upgrades, which you purchase from the skill tree using money found in each level — levels contain a certain number of money pick-ups, lore finds, and chests (skills and cosmetics), which act as collectables. The weapon upgrades are the only unlockables that use the found money, with the actual skill tree needing perk points. Weaponry in Evil West fills more of a support role, with your main utilities being the electrically charged gauntlet Jesse wears. In fact, the entire skill tree is aimed towards that, so you don't get much of a choice when it comes to creating your own playstyle. But punching gross creatures in the face is fun anyway, so why not make it a bit better?

If you've played Shadow Warrior, you'll be accustomed to the level design Flying Wild Hog ops for; linear environments that have traversal actions and obvious combat areas that are much larger and more open. The world is stunning, with levels taking you to well-used Old West locations like logging towns, mines, and the like, and obliterating the monsters is satisfying from both a gameplay perspective and a visual standpoint, with enemies exploding into clouds of gore, being ripped apart, and generally dying in the most dramatic of fashions. It all looks great, but even on Xbox Series X, you can only run the game in one of two modes: 4K/30fps or 1080p/60fps, meaning it never looks as good as it could look, or will look on PC for that fact. It's a real shame in my opinion because there is no doubt that a lot of work has been put into the level design choices — aside from some path blocking and traversal mechanics that would rather you climb over a tree trunk than step over a box.

The Evil West achievements stick very close to the Flying Wild Hog script, offering mostly story and difficulty-related challenges. There are a couple for unlocking certain perks and weapon upgrades, but thanks to the respect system found in the game's hub between missions, you can easily and freely put points in everything you need once you've found the skill in the levels' chests. For the difficulty achievements, mission replay can be used to dive back into each level to find the missing collectables and complete on a different difficulty. One mild annoyance here is the fact that you can't see which difficulties you've completed each level on, so you run the risk of replaying the same content. Replaying doesn't affect the main progress, though, which is an awesome design choice, so you can bounce in and out without moving an inch from where you are/were in your main playthrough.

Summary

Evil West feels like a fresh take on the typical 'Old West' settings we see, offering a satisfying combat system and enough gore to sate the appetite of the most bloodthirsty of vampires. Its dark narrative and compelling characters are both engaging, but some questionable level design choices hamper the experience a little in places. There is no doubt, though, that Evil West should be played by anyone with a love for the Western setting and occult references. In good cowboy fashion, this is a tale filled with sadness, pain, action, and perseverance through adversity, and it does a damn good job of it!

* Tom spent around 13 hours proving that the undead really can die, unlocking ten achievements in the process. A review copy was provided by the publisher and was played on an Xbox Series X.

More Evil West stories:

Review Xbox Series X|S

Written by Tom West

Tom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with systems like the Nintendo 64 and Playstation until he eventually fell in love with the Xbox 360. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not achievement hunting, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online.