![]() Outside of combat missions, you control a cursor that can be navigated to specific points with a variety of options- you can visit mines, saloons and towns in order to mine gold, buy or trade items, or quell an uprising in the town. Much of the story of Hard West is told through text delivered on the overworld map. Completing all of the campaign scenarios could run you about 20-25 hours, which is a little on the short side, but par for the course in its price range of $20. ![]() Death, for example, is the narrator at the beginning of the game, but is quick to become a driving force in the overall plot, despite seeming relatively innocuous, at first. Each scenario is related to the others in a larger way which culminates into some very interesting, albeit dark and violent, supernatural themes. Mind you, there are several story scenarios of Hard West, and the above is merely a mission’s worth of the very first. You get to travel to some of the most interesting locations in Hard West. Once the prologue mission is completed, players are able to continue the story of the father and son as they try their hand at gold prospecting in order to make a living for themselves, while dealing with bandits, Death itself, and supernatural amulets that bear a strange curse. The men, a father and son, manage to escape their captors and set out to rescue the mother only to fail in doing so. The story of the game kicks off with an all too familiar Western trope: A family is accosted by bandits, the wife is captured, and the men sold into slavery. Hard West is an isometric, turn-based strategy game- very reminiscent of XCOM or Frozen Synapse. This means that when you make a deal with the devil, you may be doing so in the most literal sense possible. Hard West isn’t exactly a faithful recreation of the Western setting, though, because it mixes in a stunning variety of sci-fi and supernatural elements. ![]() There’s always something a little special about the times of the gold rush era- where men and women would take it upon themselves to take what they feel is rightfully theirs. ![]() The Old West is an interesting theme that, for some reason or another, not a lot of video games seem to utilize as a setting. ![]()
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