The plains and prairies of America are suffering under an Undead blight in Evil West. Hordes of Vampires operate almost unimpeded, slaughtering entire towns and crafting profane plans in the hidden and forgotten parts of the United States. It's a hostile environment, but there is a force fighting back against the darkness.
We play the titular character of Jesse Rentier, the son of the leader of the Rentier Institute. A clandestine vampire hunter organization that deals with these immortal monsters and their mutant minions, and for first-timers, it can feel like being tossed to the wolves. Whilst it's not too hard to figure out some tricks as you play, it can help to have a few facts to help you hit the ground running. So here are a few handy beginner tips for Evil West.
10 Be Aggressive
The first, simplest, and best tip for Evil West you can have is to just be aggressive. Whilst you may have six-shooters and other Cowboy gadgets, punching things really, really hard gets the job done so much faster and easier.
Diving headlong into combat with your handheld steampunk Power Fist is also pretty much necessary against some enemies. Later in the game, you'll encounter Vampire Nobles and other chunky Undead Elites that can regen their entire health bars back. So battering them into bloody chunks before they can do this is paramount to preventing the blood-sucking hordes from dogpiling you.
9 Follow The Silver Chains
Every third-person action game has a sign to show players where to head next and in the case of Evil West, it's Silver-looking chains. These jangling loops hang over anything interactable and they're often your sign for where to go next.
A good tip when entering an area is to quickly scout around for wherever they are. Though it may sound basic, sometimes there are hidden items, lore, and other rewards hidden away behind these sparkling metal singlets. It's always worth checking them out before heading to the next arena, so keep an eye out for anything bright and shiny.
8 Be Aware Of Accidental Progression
On the topic of the chains, it really can't be stressed enough how wary of them you should be. Unfortunately, Evil West likes to hide progression points behind some of them. And you won't know you've found one until you've jumped over it.
Why that's frustrating is that quite often there will be some massive treasure chests or other rewards that you're now locked off from getting without resetting the mission. It can regularly lead to frustrating moments of accidentally finding yourself staring at loot you could easily go and get but are permanently blocked from. Luckily you can sometimes guess which chain is progression and what isn't, but just take a second to check each one before you dive over or climb up them.
7 Find The Combo That Works
There are a lot of combo mechanics in Evil West, and it's very easy to just walk into a brawl swinging the same basic attack over and over. Whilst this can be effective, you should really mix it up with some combos. There's a lot to mix and match with some fairly easy inputs, but it's recommended you find one that works for you.
As an example, a good opener is the Hero Punch or Zap Dash followed by an uppercut with a Zap Slam or Revolver Juggle into another uppercut. You can loop most small enemies into this and lock them from getting any hits on you pretty easily, but finding the timing can take a bit of practice. Tinker with your fight style and you should find the combat pretty easy if not borderline breakable at times.
6 Upgrade Your Guns
A Cowboy is nothing without his firearms and whilst your six-shooter and lever-action rifle are great in the beginning, you definitely want to keep them upgraded. Initially, they're mostly used for dealing with ranged threats, extending combo strings, or doing minimal puzzles. But as you go on you'll need to rely on them a lot more.
Evil West can throw some pretty chunky enemies at you and being able to whittle them down when you're taking a breather from melee can make all the difference. When you're able to add the energy upgrade to your revolvers and rifle it's recommended that you do. It's a little pricey at a few thousand credits per upgrade, but it significantly buffs their damage and adds things like charged shots and chain lightning. So it's quite a beefy boost.
5 Prioritize Targets
Flying Wild Hog have been busy because there's a fairly robust army of Undead Ghouls and monsters from folklore to fight with as you go through Evil West's story. They all have fairly unique forms of attacking you and it can turn some arena fights into long drawn-out brawls where you're constantly fighting to just survive. Prioritizing which creep to attack first will make all the difference if you're finding yourself struggling.
Though focusing on one target may seem obvious, it's harder in practice with how Evil West handles enemy encounters. In that it pours everyone on you at once in a huge dogpile where they all attack at once. So often you'll be taking hits from absolutely everywhere and with how some moves can absolutely decimate your health bar, finding which Ghoul to go after first is key. A good tip is to hit sharpshooters and ranged goons first, then the larger Brute boys, and finally the resident Elite or mini-boss. Basic minions are just there to get in your way so always leave them to last.
4 Don’t Murder All The Minions
To dwell on the topic of monster minions for a moment. In the heat of a fight, especially against certain mini-bosses, a good tip for Evil West is to keep a couple of basic minions alive as you dodge around. It may sound odd, but they can be pretty beneficial in a number of ways.
For starters, they can be used to harvest health or energy at a moment's notice if you're running low. But more importantly, they can be used for emergency escapes. Since your movement speed is pretty slow and lumbering, and because the dodge roll is so short, being able to Zap Dash and essentially warp to a half-dead or weak minion away from a high damaging monster that was about to smack you can be an absolute lifesaver. One or two basic Undead is usually enough and too low a threat to cause any problems, so try to keep a handful around until the end in some of the game's tougher arena fights.
3 Utilize The I-Frames On Dodging
Whilst you can block attacks in Evil West, it's a few missions in until you unlock it and for a while, you'll have to rely on the old trusty dodge roll. It doesn't move far, but thankfully it's got a lenient amount of invincibility frames that are extremely easy to take advantage of. So a good tip is to learn at what point they kick in as it can substantially nerf some of the bigger and nastier attacks some of the late-game Vampires like to throw out.
The I-frames begin at the start of the roll and end just as your back legs finish going around. It's just a few seconds, but nothing can slip in at that point and you can really cheese particular enemies with it. The Vampire Noble as an example, as their swings have massive screen-wide hitboxes on them.
2 Pop Those Cooldown Powers
As you're punching those Vampire heads into pulp on the pavement, you shouldn't forget about your gear on cooldown. They can open up a lot of opportunities for powerhouse combos in some fights or just help you pull out a moment of breathing room in a brawl.
For example, the Crippling Rod is great for stunning everyone in the room at once or looping an Elite into another run of a Zap-based combo for extra damage. There's also the flamethrower, which for a while is your only real option for crowd control since everything else in your kitbag in the early game is single-target focused. They recharge fairly quickly, even faster if you're landing hits in melee, so use them often and at the right moment if you want to breeze through Evil West.
1 Everything Can Be Brute Forced
One final tip for Evil West worth taking away is that every fight in the game can be brute-forced. There are no grinding up stats, no revisiting areas for more gear, it's all just down to you and your ability to punch faces. So as a tip, if you're struggling with a particular arena you just have to dodge more, cheese harder, and punch better.
Checkpoints are fairly forgiving and load times are fast, so you slam against progression blockers repeatedly fairly quickly in just a few minutes. You can also respec your skills if you're having absolutely no luck, but honestly the best tip is to brute force fights until you win. Whether that's through ranging them out with your side arms and cooldown abilities or abusing the combo system, everything can be brute forced in Evil West.