There are a lot of ways for things to go wrong in Weird West, and some of these mistakes matter more than others. It’s fine to trip up here and there while learning the ropes, but beginners will find that there are a few essential tips that can mean the difference between serving the enemy a cold plate of revenge and tucking into that same meal themselves. Here are some of the most common mistakes to avoid.
8 Choosing The Wrong Difficulty
Players have access to four difficulty modes in Weird West: Story, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard. The game includes outlines that detail the differences between them to help players make the right choice. Whereas many games allow players to tailor certain elements of difficulty individually, in Weird West they are locked.
Difficulty affects everything from enemy detection speed and damage to friendly fire and health regeneration from food, so tweaking the difficulty by a single level can make a big difference. It’s common for players experienced with games in this genre to pick too hard a difficulty, making things even trickier than the game’s finicky camera angles. Fortunately, the player can adjust the difficulty once the game has begun if they find it too difficult.
7 Neglecting Stealth
It might seem strange that sneaking around is a major element for a game about gunslingers in the Old West, but that’s exactly the case here. Stealth is vitally important for staying alive. Fortunately, Weird West allows the player to distract enemies and bait them out of position by grabbing and throwing environmental objects such as bottles.
The player comes equipped with plenty of firepower, which may leave players asking why they can’t just shoot their way out of trouble. The answer is they can, but doing so risks leaving the player a few bullets short of a bandolier when the next fight rolls around. Ammo might not be as precious a resource in this game as some others in the genre, but that doesn’t mean it should be wasted needlessly.
6 Neglecting Partner’s Inventory
RPGs and games inspired by them have a sketchy record when it comes to inventory management. Some of the best RPGs have inventory systems that are generous and intuitive, whereas other games make finding, moving, and equipping items an absolute pain. Unfortunately, Weird West leans towards the latter, and players may find themselves taking frequent trips back to town just to dump excess items.
A simple beginner’s tip is to recruit a partner as soon as possible. They’re handy in a shootout, but they can be even more useful as an extra set of hands to carry around the player’s ill-gotten gains. Whether they’re hoarding guns, bullets, or something more exotic, partners should be loaded up with as much gear as they should carry to cut down on wasted trips.
5 Letting Quests Expire
RPGs with great questing are all over the place when it comes to timing. Some let players ignore even the most vital of quests for months before they finally decide to get back on track. Others, like Weird West, feature time-sensitive quest lines that disappear if the player sits on them too long.
If it’s a mistake to let quests sit too long and disappear, it’s also a mistake not to load up on quests when given the opportunity. Whenever the player is in a certain area they should take and complete every quest that’s available to them before the day counter runs out. This can require some strategic movements across the world map, but it means that bounties and other valuable missions won’t be wasted due to inattention. There’s nothing that hurts quite like seeing a potential reward evaporate.
4 Overlooking Gear
Like other adventure games, Weird West requires the player to have specific tools in hand in order to accomplish certain key tasks. The player can’t skin an animal without a toolkit, mine without a pick, or dig without a shovel anymore than they can shoot without a gun.
Players get a shovel at Jane’s farmhouse as part of the story, but the pickaxe and toolkit are another story. They can be purchased or found through explorable, and the former option is the preferable one. It’s a mistake not to get the pickaxe and toolkit early, because doing so means the player won’t be able to gather all of the money and resources they otherwise could, making them weaker in the long run, which makes a difference for those who aren’t exploiting Nimp Heads for extra profit.
3 Not Healing Quickly
It’ll be no surprise to fans of Westerns that Weird West includes no shortage of ways for the player to die if they aren’t careful. There are a few options when it comes to healing, and the player will need to make good use of all of them. Letting injuries go unattended for too long is a mistake that will quickly prove costly.
Potions and medkits are useful, but setting up camp on the world map is even better, as sleeping will restore valuable HP. The player can also cook at camp or within levels. If all that fails, the player can resort to drinking from cactuses, which are a surprisingly good source of healing. If the player has taken a beating, there are far worse sights to see than that prickly plant.
2 Neglecting Abilities And Perks
Though it isn’t a traditional RPG, Weird West does borrow a number of elements from the genre, including the ability to upgrade their character. Perks are passive upgrades derived from items, and those that allow the player to haggle for better prices in shops and scavenge for more gold are perks that are best picked up early, as they’ll make a significant difference to the player’s coffers in the end.
Abilities are purchased using relics found throughout the world and can then be used in battle. Charm is a fantastic ability to purchase early on since it allows the player to hypnotize enemies, letting them fight temporarily on the player’s behalf, removing a threat from the fight and adding some additional damage to the player’s on in a single stroke.
1 Not Exploring
There’s a level of sameness to the environments in Weird West, and players will soon get used to seeing the maps of farms, mines, and towns repeated. Just because they start to look the same doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be explored, however, and players that fail to do so will be passing up plenty of useful items.
Exploring areas and collecting items early is especially important when it comes to the town, because the player will be locked out of many areas within it following the main story’s first big mission. Though there’s technically a workaround to this specific problem, it requires the player to become a thief, which ratchets up the difficulty in ways they may not want.
Weird West is available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
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