Weird West’s New Aiming System Got Me Into Playing The Game Again

image

Last week, WolfEye Studios dropped the 1.04 update for its immersive sim action-RPG Weird West. Alongside the Ironman Mode-esque Nimpossible mode, the update also adds a new experimental aiming system that, for me, works so good that it got me playing the game again after stopping back during the game’s launch week.

Weird West is played from the top-down perspective, with the default aiming system controls like a twin-stick shooter. Once you draw your gun (or brandish your melee weapon of choice), your character will be facing in the direction of where you point the right analog stick at. It sounds intuitive and all but in the most hectic of fights, it’s very easy for folks not experienced with these sorts of controls to find combat a bit frustrating.

Imagine not being able to hit your shots, and there can be hazards and explosives at play. And friendly fire is on. In true immersive sim fashion, you can just embrace the chaos and sloppily survive gunfights, companions’ survival be damned.

But there are some folks who might find the controls to be a struggle. That’s folks like me, and this sort of frustration is what caused me to unfortunately drop this game and move on to other titles.

[embedded content]

The new experimental control might be for those folks, folks like me. The way the new aiming works is that your right analog stick rotates the camera- you’ll always be pointing straight up from the centre of the screen. This way, you’ll always be able to orient yourself and keep track of where your character is relative to the map.

It’s not perfect yet, hence the experimental label for this new aiming style. For one, it only works well if you don’t invert your y-axis. Moving up and down the right analog stick when aiming a stick of dynamite (and any sort of grenade) not only moves the aiming reticule but also automatically tilts the camera to give you a better view of where you’re throwing them at.

However, when the y-axis is inverted, the camera tilt doesn’t, so you’ll be lobbing dynamites with poor visibility. This oversight, of not having all the camera systems invert the y-axis despite toggling it in the options, and I hope this issue is getting fixed.

Still, if you find Weird West’s aiming to be a bit hard and dropped the game, now’s a good time to hop back on the saddle and see if it works for you now. There are a lot of great systems and mechanics interactions that would make any im-sim fans giddy, but the switch from the usual first-person perspective to a top-down ARPG-esque view will take some getting used to. But I’m glad the devs are still figuring out more ways to make this game be experienced by more folks.

And for those that had completed the game and wanted another challenge like permadeath and no save-scumming possible with every respawn requires a Nimp Head, Nimpossible mode sounds like a treat.

You can find the 1.04 update patch notes here.

Weird West is out now on PS4, PC (Steam, Microsoft Store) and Xbox One and is available on Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass.

Time Stamp:

More from Gamer Matters