Even though the release of the PlayStation 5 is imminent, the Hard West Ultimate Edition will not be getting an update graphically, but the success of this game was never because of how it looked, so that shouldn’t have too much on an impact on the Ultimate Edition’s success.
Not only does Hard West provide a new take on the wild west time period, but it also does so with a game genre not often associated with consoles, the PlayStation 4 or the American west.
Cowboys, gunfights and the wild, wild west are nothing new to gamers and audiences around the world. Hollywood can’t get enough of the time period, and the number of films based in that era is beyond counting by now, but some of the biggest include The Magnificent Seven, No Country for Old Men and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
The gaming industry is no different, legendary games like Red Dead Redemption, Wild Guns and Wild West Online have kept gamers and western enthusiasts entertained for many years. Fans of the genre also got a treat with the release of Desperados III earlier this year, and it quickly became one of the biggest releases of 2020. The love for all things western is also reflected in the iGaming industry, where many new UK casinos on the horizon like Volt feature wild-west titles in their offerings, such as Wild Guns and Dead or Alive 2, to satisfy fans of the genre.
With decades of Wild West entertainment available on the market, it would take a pretty amazing game to bring something new, innovative and most importantly, fun to the table. Thankfully, Hard West lives up to the challenge.
Firstly, the game is set in a unique “weird” wild west that includes demons, arcane rituals, cults and the dead walking the earth. It is a topic that hasn’t really been covered before and is an interesting situation to ponder as the earth is more sparsely populated, but technology is also non-existent, so many of the zombie scenarios that could seem cliché elsewhere will play out very differently in this game.
Not only that, but Hard West will also feature a genre not commonly used in conjunction with the Wild West, namely the turn-based tactics style made famous by titles like X-Com and BattleTech, which are both futuristic and science fiction-themed.
Despite the rarity of the combination of turn-based tactics and the Wild West to this point, they work very well together in this game, and it will come as no surprise if Hard West spawns some copycats in the near future.
Even though the release of the Playstation 5 is imminent, the Hard West Ultimate Edition will not be getting an update graphically, but the success of this game was never because of how it looked, so that shouldn’t have too much on an impact on the Ultimate Edition’s success.
Hard West was initially released for PC on 18 November 2015 to favourable reviews and reception from gamers and critics was good. The games’ developer CreativeForge initially had difficulty finding a publisher for the title and resorted to crowdfunding it on Kickstarter. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long to find a publisher after the game had surpassed its funding goal by nearly 35% and Gambitious gaming was brought on board to publish the game.
The success of the game saw two additional sets of downloadable content (DLC) made for the game and both will be included in the Ultimate Edition released on PS4. This release also does a fantastic job of blending the stories from the main game and DLC, so it never feels like a disjointed experience.
The game wasn’t initially released on consoles because, at the time, there was some doubt about how well turn-based games would work on a controller. There was also concern about how popular they would be with a console audience that was presumed only to be interested in action and sports games.
The massive success of X-Com and similar titles has soundly dismissed that myth though and the combination of a fresh take on the wild west and a unique genre to tackle it in, Hard West is sure to land well with PlayStation gamers around the world.