Fights are bare-knuckle brawls in the first few missions of Evil West. But as you blast through its burly beasts and other supernatural horrors you'll go from a basic boxer to a beatdown master.
This is managed by the game's Perks and Skill Point system which rewards leveling up with access to a plethora of powerful perks to pick. There are a lot of strong and flamboyant buffs to choose from, but the best ones are hidden in the game world. They're easily missed if you're unaware of them and they only appear at specific points. So to help you get stronger with these helpful upgrades, here are all the hidden Perk locations in Hard West.
The Hidden Perks
There are eight hidden perks in Evil West. They're shown at the bottom of the Perk menu and are hidden from view until you find them. The enhancements themselves are a mixed bag of robust buffs to fairly useful add-ons. But they're handy to have nonetheless as it's just more power to pour into building up Jessie into the most OP Cowboy around.
It can turn into quite the scavenger hunt to find some of them. So to help you decide if the box hunt is worth it, here's a brief breakdown of each hidden Perk in Evil West and what it does so you can see why it's worth taking some time off the beaten path.
Booming Business
This is a fun perk for those that like to make things go boom. Once unlocked, Booming Business increases the explosion radius of TNT crates.
With how often you’ll find them scattered around tight corridor sections or arena fights where you can clump enemies around them, it’s a pretty handy and devastating buff to have. An added bonus feature is that it also synergizes with the Boom Balls perk. So you can create quite a particle-filled mess with the right setup.
Lethal Heights
A great perk for those that prefer a combo-heavy playstyle. Lethal Heights increases damage against mid-air enemies by 25 percent. This is a highly recommended hidden perk to have because it’s incredibly easy to reset the debuff by quickly uppercutting targets again and again.
Doing this gets them stuck in an extremely fast death loop that melts through their health bars in seconds. Although, worth noting is that this only applies to targets that can be sent airborne. Anything too large like the Vampire Nobles means it won’t count. It’s better used for quickly clearing out crowds of chaff enemies and works well with Punch The Bunch which allows for multiple targets to be launched at once.
Boom Balls
A fairly fun and simple perk that doesn’t require too much explaining and can cause a lot of anarchy. Boom Balls turn any pickup into little shootable explosives. This works for both energy and health pickups.
Any hit on these glowing items with the Rifle or X-Bow will cause them to detonate in a fairly large explosion that’s strong enough to vaporize at least a handful of basic fodder monsters. Although that does mean you could accidentally screw yourself out of heals and energy that might be handy later. It’s better used in brief short fights and corridor-clearing sections.
Healthy Lifestyle
This perk guarantees that whenever an energy pickup is about to appear, it’s replaced with a health one instead. It’s a bit of a trade-off for more readily available heals. But if you’re dependent on Jessie's energy powers it can lead you to easily being starved of abilities unless you counter it with the appropriate buffs.
For example things like On A Roll which gives a full energy bar every fifth finisher, or Blood and Thunder which drains 50 percent of max health for 30 seconds in exchange for one energy bar pip. It’s not something you’re ever going to desperately need, but it’s nice to have.
Adrenaline Junkie
This perk is the inverse of Healthy Lifestyle, in that instead of health drops you gain an energy orb. Pretty self-explanatory and it’s worth having as energy can be hard to come by in the game if you don’t have the right set of main line perks active.
It’s a little riskier since it means outside of your self-heal, your options for repairing your battered body mid-brawl are going to be a lot more limited. However, you can counter this with Pumpjack. That perk reduces healing dispenser cooldown when you deal damage, and Death Defied which is essentially an extra life plus a minor 25 percent heal.
Work-Life Balance
Not one to activate until you have other options for healing. Work-Life Balance converts 25 percent of each health pickup into energy. This one is a little finicky, but with the right workaround it can be pretty strong.
If you don't then it's quite crippling. But if you have a high healing build that's energy-starved, or are looking for more ways to hoover up juice for the Gauntlet's abilities, then it's worthwhile.
Life Support
A very useful perk. Life Support gives your Gauntlet a regen ability. How it works is, as you run around it will slowly fill your health back up. On average it takes around 90 seconds to completely fill it back to full, so a brief breather in a fight is all you need.
It’s not that fast, but it’s a constant heal and considering how often you’ll find yourself still alive thanks to a magic pixel of health, the regen keeping you just continually topped off is a definite must-have. Especially if you plan on taking on higher difficulty levels.
Tooldown
A great unlockable for those that like the Crippling Rod. Tooldown reduces the amount of time taken by Agent Tools on cooldown. With how useful an item like the Crippling Rod is for stunning even the most massive of monsters and how helpful the heal is during dire moments, this perk is pretty much essential.
To further sell it, the Crippling Rod is a great way to absolutely break certain boss fights, so you really should keep this massive stagger move constantly in reserve and Tooldown makes that much easier. It’s not available until near the end of the game. But it’s great for revisiting past missions or running through the game again on a higher difficulty.
Hidden Perk Locations
Since these perks are so helpful they're naturally not going to be handed out for free. You have to work a little, but thankfully they don't require a lot of legwork. It's easy to just stumble onto all of them in one playthrough. This is mainly thanks to how linear the game is and how short its offshoots to the main corridor are.
They're found within extra large and fancy chests, so they're easy to spot. Plus it's always worth chasing these boxes down as they also can contain cosmetics or a skill point. So here's the location of each of Evil West's hidden perks.
Booming Business
This hidden perk is easy to find. It's in mission five. After you face off against the werewolves for the first time in front a rundown shack, instead of heading on, take a minute to explore. There should be a path leading under the cliff edge behind the building. Keep left and the chest should be right around the corner.
Lethal Heights
This one is a bit more challenging. It's in mission six. As you briefly head into this section of mines, instead of quickly blitzing through it, there should be a small cave opening. Climbing through here will open it out into a small cave and an ambush with some Ghouls and a mini-boss. After that brief brawl, there's a small fence at the back of the room. Hopping over this should reveal a large chest with the perk inside.
Boom Balls
This hidden perk in Evil West is a little ways into the game. It's towards the end of mission seven but it’s worth it. Just before the boss fight, there should be a cliff with a chain trailing off it, it’ll take you along a short path with some basic minions before ending in some bushes. Burning these away with the Flamethrower should reveal the chest with Boom Balls inside.
Adrenaline Junkie
Getting your hands on this hidden perk requires a little bit of puzzle-solving. In mission eight there will be a block puzzle that involves creating a bridge. It’s very quick and it helps if you shove the small square blocks off to the side. Connecting them together will let you access the exit and next to it should be a platform with a chest with the perk inside that you can now easily get to if you’ve put the blocks in the right spot.
Healthy Lifestyle
Kept safe inside an easy-to-miss box if you’re not paying attention to your surroundings, you’ll find the Healthy Lifestyle buff on a little ledge. It's available on mission 10. During the section where you have to follow some cabling to trip three switches, there should be a chain looped around a wooden post near the top of the buildings. Shooting this with a ranged weapon will cause it to drop, climb up it to find the hidden perk chest.
Work-Life Balance
Getting your hands on this hidden perk in Evil West requires some legwork. In mission 11 at the start of the chapter, there should be stairs opposite the Perk Reset box. Heading up those should lead to a ladder, and following that path around the back of a house will lead to a small fight and another roop with another ladder inside. At the top of this is the chest with the Work-Life Balance perk inside.
Life Support
Another perk that you can wander right past if you’re not paying attention. Life Support is found in mission 13. Inside a small tucked-away mine section, where you’re walking above toxic water on planks, off to the left of the room there will be some more wooden scrap near the ceiling. Shoot it down to create a path, then cross it and repeat the process to extend it to the chest at the end. Simple.
Tooldown
The last hidden perk in Evil West you can get your hands on. It’s available in mission 14 as the game is starting to wind down. After exiting the trainshed that's infested with webbing, keep an eye out for this water tower. The chest on top of it has what you need and all you have to do is shoot the chains next to it, climb up them and it’s yours.