The current cultural zeitgeist has been taken hold of by “Weird West”-influenced media, a subgenre that blends traditional Western themes with elements of the supernatural, horror, science fiction, or fantasy. It takes the familiar setting of the American frontier, like cowboys, outlaws, and dusty towns, and infuses it with bizarre, eerie, or fantastical elements that defy the norms of the classic Western.
Shades of “American Gothic” is usually cross-blended with Weird West concepts. The best examples in other video games are titles such as Evil West, Alder’s Blood, Dusk, and Live A Live‘s Western chapter. It’s a premise bursting with gameplay possibilities that seemingly can be applied to any genre. RPGs, strategy, brawler; you name it, the prospect of cowboys and the paranormal/surreal is flexible.
What if the gameplay of Thief or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. were set in a warped version of the Wild West twisted by eldritch forces? Instead of root’n, toot’n, and shoot’n, you’d be sneak’n, creep’n, and stak’n the undead with a deliciously retro, low-poly, and high chunky visual style. Saddle up, partner, and get justice immediately in our Blood West review!
Blood West
Developer: Hyperstrange
Publisher: New Blood Interactive
Platforms: Windows PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S (reviewed)
Release Date: October 16, 2025
Price: $24.99
Like a good Western, the protagonist of Blood West is a nameless gunslinger who was left for dead and wants some payback. Except this time, he actually was killed, but was brought back to life as an undead revenant.
The shaman who resurrected our grizzled hero explains that devil worshippers have released a great curse that defiled the land and everyone in it. Reality itself has been warped, turning settlers into mutants, animals into horrors, and the dead into restless predators.
Blood West is divided into three episodes, with each one being set in a bespoke, open-world biome. The canyons of the first area are your prototypical desert frontier, festooned with zombies, trigger-happy birdmen, gun-toting harlots, and vicious wendigos.
The second episode delves into the Barren Lands, where our hero navigates fog-choked bayous teeming with amphibious abominations and hallucinatory threats. The story introduces themes of madness and forbidden knowledge, fully embracing Lovecraftian concepts and introducing more NPCs to interact with.
The climactic third episode takes our wandering gunslinger to the sun-scorched badlands riddled with ancient ruins and mechanical monstrosities. The Gunslinger’s quest converges on confronting the heart of the curse, while also revealing subtle clues that perhaps the setting isn’t what it appears to be.
By the time players get this far, the game will feel way easier than you’d think, and a lot of that is due to character progression and limited enemy AI. When Blood West begins, it’s a very hard game.
The protagonist’s lack of weapons and resources is harshly felt, and if you’ve ever played a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, you’ll have an idea of what this means. Blood West is primarily a stealth game, and players are best to avoid shootouts. Ammo is rare, and enemies are basically everywhere, so getting killed over and over is inevitable.
Get used to the stiff melee action because it’s the only way to get anywhere at the start. Firing a shot will alert a band of monsters that will rip the hero to shreds like a pack of mandrills fighting over a mouse.
You must take things slow… very slow. It can be so slow that it kind of becomes boring because the core experience early on is exploiting limited AI. I get that most of the enemies are monsters, but it does feel like a lazy crutch for the developers to explain the enemies’ stupidity.
The RPG elements in Blood West are very strong. Every collectible has a purpose, and every consumable can be used in creative ways to exploit its perks. Early on, a powerful knife can be earned from a quest which gives the hero vampiric health-sapping powers… but only when he’s stricken with the drunk status effect.
This encouraged me to become a raging alcoholic for most of the early game, running around the desert with a backpack full of booze and stabbing everyone to death.
This is just one of the many ways to play Blood West. The range of possibilities and play styles is nigh endless… at least it is until you start getting more powerful weapons and gear that empower the hero to be a force that would make Judge Holden break a sweat. Thankfully, this momentum carries over between episodes because the Gunslinger’s gear carries over, though it must be said that I sometimes miss the early game friction.
Dying is mostly a slap on the wrist because the protagonist is an undead cowboy who gets resurrected at the last totem he visited. The only drawback is that death comes with a random stat penalty; an anti-perk that can be removed with a purple potion, fulfilling a totem challenge, or prevented by equipping a gold coin. Thankfully, gold coins are fairly common, but taking up a precious gear slot is painful because some items are too helpful not to use.
Like a good survival horror, players get a grid-based inventory screen, expanding it with backpacks and satchels, making it have inventories within inventories. It isn’t the most graceful implementation and is a product of being a PC-centric immersive sim first. You are meant to navigate these menus with a mouse and not a d-pad/analog stick. Selecting stuff and rummaging through sacks becomes a slog, adding minutes to actions that should be seconds.
Compared to other immersive sims, Blood West is on the dumb side. The attention to detail in the world is limited. You won’t be starting fires or stacking objects with real-time physics to gain higher ground. Most enemies will bum-rush the hero the instant he’s spotted, and you can’t mess with them in creative ways.
Included in the console release is the Dead Man’s Promise expansion, casting players as a new character who can summon spirits to distract or fight enemies, and use voodoo rituals for buffs/debuffs.
The magic-focused shaman character explores a more compact biome, but leans harder on stealth, forcing players to be more adaptive and dupe foes into fighting each other. It’s a worthwhile addition to a very generous package for only $24.99.
The RPG mechanics and how they impact the gameplay are Blood West’s biggest strength, as well as its distinct visuals. It looks like Quake II meets Undead Nightmare, but leaning harder in the direction of Lovecraftian fantasy. The game’s biggest missteps are its boss fights, which are utterly out of place in a game that leans so heavily on avoiding fights.
Blood West offers flexible, skill-driven mechanics. Whether players approach it with stealthy backstabs or gunslinging headshots, the open-ended levels encourage creative approaches in an imaginative setting with plenty to see and do. It isn’t the most polished or evenly balanced, and the tone can feel more comedic than horror. It feels more like Evil Dead than Bone Tomahawk.
Blood West was reviewed on Xbox Series S using a code provided by New Blood Interactive. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Blood West is now available for Windows PC (via STEAM), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
