West of Dead (2020)
I spent a lot of time thinking about what I should do as my first video game for the blog. In the end, I figured it had to be one of two things - either an enduring classic, such as Bioshock or Doom, or a hidden gem that I felt few even knew existed. However, while I’m sure I’ll talk about those timeless entries into the video game art museum, I felt it would be more fitting for my first game review to be something that I felt deserved more recognition.
And that’s how I came to talk about the Plainwalker.
West of Dead, created by Upstream Arcade and published by Raw Fury, is a 2020 roguelike dungeon crawler. That’s a brutally simplified version of what the game is actually doing, but let’s go with that for the time being. It follows a mysterious gunslinger who doesn’t even remember his own name, who awakens one day to his skull in flames, and he must navigate a strange afterlife-like realm. The game is entirely themed around the Wild West, which I do love to see.
Similar to Hunt: Showdown, another game I love, the game doesn’t truck with the glitzy, glamorous West of the days of Bonanza, but rather with a dark country, minor chord-strumming tone. Everything is inky, reminiscent of Mike Mignola’s artistry in comics such as Hellboy. That’s pretty fitting, too, as the main character’s inner monologue is performed excellently by Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman.
How such a lowkey, indie game got Perlman is beyond me, but Perlman does the game’s tone justice in so, so many ways. His deep growls as he ponders to himself the motives of the disparate cast of characters, or as he tries to piece together his own broken identity, is as smooth as butter. His rumblings match with the foreboding guitar tunes that play alongside the gameplay, which kick it into high gear whenever you enter an engagement. The soundtrack alone is worth a listen, and it’s mercifully on Spotify if you want to check it out for yourself. Composed by Phil French and Tom Puttick, it masterfully intercuts with the gunplay on display.
The gameplay mechanics are fairly simple. Each floor has a theme, such as the Mines or the Town, and each come with their own gimmicks. For instance, in the Town, random rifles will peek from shuttered windows and take potshots at you. As for the standard gunfights, you have to navigate cover, fire upon your enemies, and reload, all of which glide together nicely. Reloading is automatic, and it’s faster when you’re in cover. You’re safe behind cover, but all of the cover can be destroyed. Enemy types vary, so you probably can’t stay in one place for long. It’s all very tight and makes for a satisfying gameplay loop.
However, what I really want to talk about is the compelling narrative that’s being woven here.
By the end of the first chapter (and therefore well within reason to talk about without getting too spoilery), you learn of someone called the Preacher, one Matthias Bauer. Now, he clearly had something to do with your death, but aside from being pretty sure he’s the one who pulled the trigger on you, the details refuse to make themselves clear. You do, however, learn your own name: Marshall William Mason.
However, there seems to be dark forces at play. You see, when someone finds themselves in this particularly gnarly part of the afterlife, they don’t tend to look quite like you do. The flaming skull is a pretty strange sight, even to the denizens of this nightmare realm. Many of them are also surprised that you find the will to attempt an escape, which is what each run represents.
Most of the shades here shamble around in the various combat rooms, armed with rifles and shotguns and doing literally nothing until you walk in. Everyone in this hell seems to become a simple husk, or at best a hopeless lump. The starting bar populates with a few characters, such as Barkeep, but they never seem to mind their lot in life. They simply greet you when you return, and while they’re cordial, they don’t seem to be very lively. Besides them, there’s a merchant who outright admits that all of his wares are plucked from corpses, and the witch, who works the permanent upgrade system and mostly seems to just be visiting.
This bleak atmosphere is a compelling one. The dark, dusty saloon, the various crypts and altars that you come across. The array of weapons varying from simple muskets to boltguns. Everything oozes a mystique that is only enhanced by Ron Perlman’s pontificating upon it all. That’s not even going into the awesome, ink-splattered aesthetics that I mentioned before.
As you enter a combat area, much of it is steeped in pitch. Lanterns adorn the room, but enemies will engage you as soon as you enter. As such, it can often come down to rushing for a lantern just to get your bearings. This is further encouraged by the fact that the lantern stuns enemies near it when it’s lit, giving the player a momentary advantage against them. This mechanic is obviously cool from a gameplay perspective, but it’s also immensely satisfying to look at, as the lantern washes out the area surrounding it as though it’s the first light you’ve seen in months.
This nice marriage of narrative weight and aesthetic principle makes West of Dead a truly enjoyable experience, and I’m heartbroken to see that it has less than 1K reviews on Steam in the 3 years since its release. If you’re looking for a visually stunning, narratively engaging, and actively challenging experience, I highly suggest you pick it up for yourself!
