Hard West 2 isn’t a historical timepiece, by any means. “So we take an actual timespan, and we take a lot from folklore of the time for supernatural elements. Some of it is based on Christian beliefs, like the devil, demons, but some of it is folklore, enemies that come more from the tall tales of mystical creatures,” Good Shepherd’s senior marketing manager Vernon Vrolijk tells GLHF. “So some of it is based in history, but we add a lot of fantasy elements on top of it to give our own feel to the world.”
Hard West 2 is a turn-based strategy that features cowboys shooting guns at one another. Yes, it has a lot of similarities to XCOM in that sense, but the way things play out is far more interesting. You can likely already visualize a lot of shootouts – think Red Dead Redemption 2 if it was a strategy game. Should enemies rock up outside the tavern you’re in, you’ll be taking cover next to windows and shooting outside at enemies hiding behind barrels.
But not all stages are static, as the first stage from the demo we played has you fighting with your gang aboard a moving train. Cowboys shoot at one another from behind cover and between train cars, while more on horses ride alongside the train to assist. It’s turn-based, but that hasn’t stopped the team from creating a sense of motion and urgency. “You actually get to play the whole train heist while moving. Near the end of the mission demons show up. Suddenly we have magic and witchcraft, and we meet the baddie of the game, who may or may not be the devil himself.” Vrolijk explains. “You do the foolish thing, you fight them, and you lose. In a desperate attempt to save yourself, you suggest playing a gamer of Poker with the devil, and lose, of course.”
Of course, the most valuable place to glean insight when making a sequel is the feedback to the first game. “We spent a lot of time just listening to what players have to say. Lessons came mostly from the player base, like what worked and what didn’t work, and then we spent more time designing how we wanted to address that,” Vrolijk tells us. “Thankfully, we’ve also worked on quite a few strategy games at this point. Experimental ones, too. So it’s a path we know relatively well. It’s easier for us to do this than work on a brand new genre.”
One of those lessons focused on improving storytelling. “The first Hard West had a very fractured story, it would jump through periods, characters, and so on from chapter to chapter. A lot of players complained that it was really difficult to track the story,” Vrolijk laments. “So now we have a deeper narrative that follows the same characters in one story from beginning to end.”
The goal was to enhance the gameplay, as you’d expect, and the Bravado State does a great job of incentivizing risky plays in the heat of battle. “What we decided was that we wanted to have a more aggressive turn-based strategy game, so we’ve innovated in a few key ways. The first way that I’m the most excited about is Bravado State,” Vrolijk explains. “If you kill an enemy during your turn you get all of your action points back, very easy to explain. But it completely changes the feel of combat because it rewards you for taking risks, and rewards you for being aggressive, whereas a game like XCOM doesn’t really do that. The system fit the fantasy, but it also allowed us to innovate the genre.”
The final big change introduced in Hard West 2 is the Luck System, which was present in the original game, but takes on a life of its own here. “When we did the first Hard West we had the Luck System. But it was passive, so it worked in the background. You will be aware of it, but you can’t really influence it. That was well received by players, but we always felt like it was lacking interactions,” Vrolijk tells us. He explains the Luck System in-depth – essentially, you’ll get Luck Points to spend in exchange for some unfortunate plays. Get shot, or miss when you fire? You’ll be “rewarded” with Luck Points as a form of compensation.
“So the game constantly tracks this, and it gives you the ability to use your Luck Points to increase your chances of making a shot. So it makes it an active gameplay element. We found it to be a really nice way to counter RNG,” says Vrolijk. “Of course, we still have some RNG in the game, because it’s still a strategy game, but it’s a lot more manageable, and it gives the player power to fight against it.”
Before our time was up, Vrolijk let us know exactly what to expect from Hard West 2. “I think it’s a bigger game than people realize. What we’re showing here is a very small taste of it. But there are so many systems and playable characters that you don’t see here. It’s really exciting to see players’ reactions.”
Of course, Vrolijk wouldn’t let us leave without sharing one essential piece of advice: “The other thing that you might not know is that Evil Dead is an amazing movie. And if you haven’t watched it, you need to watch it. Just throwing it out there.”
Written by Dave Aubrey on behalf of GLHF.
