The Wild West and the occult make surprisingly good bedfellows, when you think about it. Out on the old American frontier, how else do you explain the rise and eventual fall of some of the biggest and most notorious historical figures? Was Billy the Kid imbued with unholy speed to earn his reputation? Was his demise at the barrel of Sheriff Pat Garrett rigged after reneging on some demonic deal?
Well, almost certainly not, but that hasn’t stopped games like Hard West and Weird West from mixing in the occult to imbue their worlds with weird creatures, characters and supernatural abilities. Later this year, Hard West 2 will do it all over again, with Ice Forge Games developing a successor to CreativeForge’s 2015 original.
In the heavily romanticised Wild West of Hollywood fiction, outlaws and bandits would rob, pilfer and purloin pretty much everything in the vast stretches of the American midwest. It didn’t matter whether it was a heavily guarded bank, a heavily guarded convoy, or a heavily guarded train, they would have a crack at it, with only the occasional lone hero or lawman able to stand in their way.
Hard West 2’s bombastic opener steps right into these tropes with Gin Carter and his gang taking on an audacious train heist. Now, this isn’t any old train, but a “Ghost Train”, though that’s surely just a name… right? It certainly doesn’t change the gang’s approach to the job, given the allure of the federal gold that’s reportedly within its carriages, and so they gallop up to the back of the train on horseback and look to hop on board.
This game takes the same turn-based XCOM-like form as the first, as you spend action points to move your posse into position and take aim at the handful of guards that rush to repel you. With three action points per turn and shooting a firearm taking two of these pips at a time, you’re relatively restrained in what you can do, cautiously moving up through the train cars and trying to take out the enemies before you.
Taking cover and popping out to shoot enemies is the name of the game here, but you’ll want to take advantage of your gang’s abilities. Gin Carter’s a straight up gunslinger and outlaw, Clive “Kestrel Colt” is one of those “fastest gun in the West” types, Flynn a sneakier thief, and then there’s Laughing Deer, a Native American warrior that leans into some base bloodthirsty tropes that are far too reductive for the modern day.
At this stage in the game, they’re all basic gunslingers without supernatural abilities that you’ll pick up later on, but for the three gun-toting characters, you have a choice between the spread of a shotgun and precision of a pistol. The latter also opens up the trick shot ability, to ricochet bullets of metallic scenery and get around the fact that you’re shooting at someone in cover. You’ll be turtling your way through the train cars through this opening mission, given that any fast-moving flanking move will leave that character unable to deal damage and being vulnerable from new enemies.
And then there’s Bravado State. This is a fundamental characteristic of the game’s turn-based battling and will really reward cunning, but aggressive play. Essentially, it has the potential to completely replenish a character’s Action Points as they kill an enemy, giving you a second, third, and more shots to then keep on blasting at the foes in front of you. Even within this opening level, it’s immensely powerful with a little forethought, as you can chip damage at enemies with most of your team and then have one more advanced shooter take them all out with Bravado shot after Bravado shot.
But it all goes to hell in a handbasket as the train goes through a tunnel, the engine emerging on the other side utterly transformed into a many-legged spider train, and with new Hellspawn enemies between you and the front of the train. Once you reach the engine, you encounter and battle Mammon, as he summons more Hellspawn for you to deal with and creates numerous duplicate decoys of himself – thankfully quite easy to dispel with a bit of Bravado – as we get the first take of the supernatural battling set to come deeper into the campaign.
It all comes to a head as it’s revealed that he is in fact the Devil, and he dangles a devious deal in front of Gin’s face. Will he gamble his posse’s souls against all the wealth he can imagine on a game of cards? Of course he will! And of course it’s going to go completely wrong, leaving the four of them on the wrong side of this particular deal.
Some uncomfortable characterisation aside, I’m really looking forward to seeing what Hard West 2 has to offer through the rest of the game. This opening level brought the spectacle of a train heist, but could really only vaguely hint at the supernatural battling that’s to come as this soulless posse seeks to get back at the Devil himself.
Hard West 2 is expected to release for PC later in 2022.
