[Review] Blood West

A retro style FPS set in an alternate wild west steeped in an eldritch horror world, Blood West runs on a mostly stealth based approach in which the unforgiving cursed environment is overflowing with an array of enemies heavily inspired by common horror tropes and cryptids. Using a low-poly art style for its monsters, set pieces and environments, it compliments these classic visual tropes with up-to-date physics and lighting.

Brought back from the dead, you play a lone gunslinger now tasked with the clean-up of the undead plaguing the lands. Moving between a variety of settings across the wild west, you empty outposts, meet other characters to help you on your journey, and find any means necessary to purge the curse and restore balance to the world. The story is mostly told in cutscenes between chapters shown in an animated, comic-like, art style or in the conversations with friendly NPCs scattered throughout the chapters.

Now, there isn’t anything groundbreaking in terms of overarching plot here, but where I think Blood West shines here is in the monster design. Each new creature is either entirely original or a tasteful interpretation of existing cryptids and folklore. While you still have the more common enemy types placed throughout each of the chapters, none of them feel generic and each are equally horrifying and intriguing in their own right.

Keeping the low-poly style of retro shooters shows the inspiration behind Blood West while still feeling immersive and original. I really appreciate this aesthetic more because even though it might be an easier method to the design and modelling of the enemies and environment, it gives the game more personality than a generic somewhat realistic approach that most modern games feel they need to shift towards.

The stealth mechanics are the classic combination of the sound you make moving around and how long you stay in the line of sight of the enemies. Showing both methods with relevant icons above a bar that fills up at the bottom of the screen as you are being detected.

Sneaking up on enemies with a melee weapon while in stealth or shooting them with a silent weapon will provide extra damage, and when paired with a headshot will often result in an instant kill. This is super helpful for starting to work through groups of enemies, as taking them face on can be quite a challenge due to the high amount of damage their attacks can do.

Stealth proves to be a strong approach to any encounter, but with the added damage, and being able to quickly move between targets hiding behind cover makes the stealth feel satisfying but still challenging. The gunplay feels very smooth, with all of the weapons feeling like they carry the right amount of weight in the recoil and fire rate.

While it is encouraged, stealth isn’t the only approach to encounters, which lets you experience a nice change of pace and keeps the game feeling fresh. Taking the enemies face on is an option, but it does provide more of a challenge, especially when under equipped. This was often the case at the start of the first chapter, where most of the attempts would end in a couple of deaths or costing me a lot of health items or other supplies.

On the other hand, taking on enemies in direct combat towards the end of chapter 2 and the start of chapter 3 does feel like less of a challenge, as you will likely have a strong build between the skills you have picked and the weapons you have collected or purchased along the way. These encounters still feel enjoyable, and I don’t think you feel too overpowered because enemy attacks are very harsh, if not fatal. Although these encounters do feel easier, I think it shows your progress with dealing with enemies in the world, resulting in your understanding of each unique move set and knowing to pick your fights carefully.

The boss fights are somewhat underwhelming, they don’t feel as difficult as just some of the outpost encounters or groups of enemies. This might be because the boss attacks look like they are designed to be easy to predict or do very minimal damage.

Exploration is strongly rewarded with lots of hidden secrets, weapons, and ammo scattered throughout each map. Discovering unique new weapons with a bunch of new properties and bonuses keeps you rotating through your loadout, trying new builds, and perhaps pivoting to different builds in the skill section. Provided with plenty of supplies and a grid based inventory system, you will often have to return to a safe camp or NPC to move stuff into your storage or sell them.

Blood West is a well-designed and stand out entry to stealth FPS games. There is an extremely satisfying user experience. This is evident from the feel of the combat all the way down to little features in looting enemies like being able to take ammo out of their guns without taking the guns themselves. I would highly recommend this to anyone not only interested in stealth FPS games but to anyone discovering stealth first-person shooters for the first time because it feels like a well-formed introduction to the genre.