Evil West was a game that I had been looking forward to since stumbling across its gameplay trailer at the tail end of June. The promise of a high-octane third person shooter with a robust melee system was all I needed to add it to my Steam wishlist. Having now finished the game I can confirm that it delivers on that promise. Flying Wild Hog has created a delightful sandbox for players to wreak havoc on vampires all across the old West. The combat gameplay really is phenomenal…it’s just getting to it that really sucks.
When you are not fighting in Evil West, you are navigating the environment and desperately searching for the next enemy encounter. The downtime between fights can last anywhere from a few moments to an excess of ten minutes. Jesse Rentier might be an acrobat of death when facing a vampire but he is frequently brought low by a waist high piece of wood. This is due to the movement mechanics being almost entirely dependent on contextually sensitive actions. They grind the game to an abrupt halt and mar an otherwise well designed experience.
We should take a moment to examine what it means for an action to be contextually sensitive. Any interaction that can only be performed at specific instances, is an action that is context sensitive. For example: in Evil West there is no jump button. Gaps can only be crossed by walking up to them, waiting for the action prompt to appear, pressing the Interact button, and then watching the corresponding animation play out. This means that your ability to jump is context sensitive. Your punch, however, can be done at anytime which makes it a context insensitive action. One type is not inherently better than the other, it just depends on what the design goals are.
In most adventure games, for example, player interaction is typically limited to clicking with the mouse. In order to create varied outcomes from the same input, contextually sensitive actions are necessary to facilitate gameplay. This works very well for the slower pace of an adventure game where you normally solve puzzles. Not so much in a 3rd person action title in which you frantically fight for your life. The over-abundance of context sensitive actions in Evil West turns what should be a high-octane cruise into a jerky stop-start affair. The most frustrating aspect of this design is that it creates mechanics that actively undermine the others.
Evil West is a game with two different modes of interaction: combat and exploration. The combat is a very free-form system that allows the player to express themselves with a variety of attacks and gadgets. This is where the game shines as the player, through Jesse, gets to run wild until everything is dead. When the battle is over you have to shift to exploration, which is overwhelmingly rigid. You are restrained to performing only the context sensitive actions enabled for advancing. Even if it’s something Jesse can do while fighting vampires, the game will not allow that as a solution when exploring.
Now this is not a problem that is specific to Evil West. Some of the biggest-budget video games suffer from the exact same design shortcomings. The most notable example from this year would be God of War: Ragnarok. Evil West is a useful case study because its smaller scope makes the problem very easy to identify. (It also allows me to bypass Ragnarok fans that refuse to acknowledge any criticism of the title.) As the player, you are forced to engage with this mechanic whether or not it makes any sense.
Combat and Movement Hate Each Other
It is at this point that I am forced to raise the old specter of ludonarrative dissonance. I’m sorry (not really) but we have to talk about it at least a little. It’s the idea that a title’s gameplay is at odds with the story in such a way that immersion is shattered. This term goes back to the original Bioshock but entered the mainstream game discourse with our favorite mass murderer, Nathan Drake. Personally, I found the whole, “How can Nathan Drake be a protagonist when he kills so many people?” discussion to be extremely stupid as it misses the point. Nathan Drake is a known criminal with ready access to firearms so I have no trouble believing that he can kill without remorse. He might also have a fun personality but that doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of extreme violence. Most discussion around ludonarritve dissonance was bad, however, it did lead to an interesting idea: ludomechanical dissonance.
In a post from 2017, blogger Josh Bycer works to create a technical term for criticizing game design when mechanics conflict with one another. He settles on the following:
“Ludomechanical Dissonance: When Game mechanics alter or conflict with the rules of a game to intentionally limit or punish the player.” 1Bycer, J (2017, July 6th). Defining Ludomechanical Dissonance in Game Design. Game Wisdom https://game-wisdom.com/critical/ludomechanical-dissonance
An example he uses of this form of dissonance is in RPGs when bosses are automatically immune to powerful status effects and debuffs. While this argument has merit I do think it is often undermined by narrative justification. One shouldn’t expect a killing curse or poison to affect undead enemies for instance. I feel Bycer places too much importance on enemy design and AI reactions to the player. Enemies usually need some rule-breaking advantages to provide friction against the omniscient entity that is the player. Instead of framing the dissonance in how the game reacts to the player, I’d like to shift it to how the player interacts with the game. Since we need something a bit more specific and to get us there, I want you to look at this screenshot from Evil West.
This is one of Evil West’s multiple moving block puzzles, the last bastion of a level designer out of ideas. We can clearly see that Jesse is no more than a few feet away and should be able to make this jump. The game, however, has dictated that such an action is impossible. This makes no sense as Jesse has a leaping punch during combat that would make any Olympic long jumper jealous. We know he could clear this gap if he would just use his legs. He can’t because the combat mechanics and traversal mechanics are completely at odds with each other. Dear reader, I would like to introduce you to Intramechanical Dissonance.
Intramechanical Dissonance: When player mechanics contradict each other during gameplay.
“Could you wrap this up?”
Certainly. Evil West is a game at odds with itself. It has a satisfying combat model packaged with boring, tedious, and un-inspired exploration built on context sensitivity. There is an equal amount of fun and frustration to be had. Evil West is also indicative of a larger problem in design where different modes of gameplay are not cohesive. If the exploration was added to make the game seem larger, they would’ve been better off expanding the combat with more enemies, weapons, etc. If the context sensitive actions during navigation are to hide loading, I would honestly prefer a loading screen since those are less intrusive. The end result is a game that is painfully bloated rather than one that leaves me wanting more. Sadly, with Evil West and so many games like it, I couldn’t wait to get to the end.