Reimagining Red Dead as a buggy, bad survival game - Wild West Dynasty Quick First Impressions

PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

If you’d like to keep 16 GB of storage on your PC and a bit of cash in your pocket, I’d highly suggest skipping this game. Maybe it will improve as early access continues on before it hits its final release state, but as of right now, this is one terrible cowboy-themed survival game.

TIME PLAYED

I played Wild West Dynasty for three hours. I would’ve played less if I wasn’t trying to give the game a chance, but even these few hours were pretty tough to choke down.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Survival gameplay. Probably the only thing that Wild West Dynasty got right was its survival gameplay. It’s got most of the fundamentals of the genre covered, from environmental danger to starvation, thirst, and crafting. In brief moments, this gameplay can feel enjoyable.

WHAT SUCKS

• No tutorial. I spent an hour just trying to figure out how to complete quests without any guidance. It doesn’t help that the game’s quest marker isn’t very accurate and sent me off in the wrong direction more than once.

• Interface. The interface feels clunky and messy. I struggled to find items in my inventory, and navigate the menu took more effort than it should have due to the buttons being hard to see.

• Voice acting. Almost every cutscene features voice acting, but the voice actors all have heavy European accents. This isn’t a dealbreaker, but in a game about the Wild West, it doesn’t sit right.

• Sounds. Whether I was moving around, repairing sheds, or destroying structures, sounds were delayed from their actions, which distracted me while playing.

• Visuals. The visuals look tremendously subpar and unpolished in Wild West Dynasty. This scans more as a game from ten or fifteen years ago.

• Animation. The underwhelming visuals are matched by equally horrible animation. Characters move in a robotic, jittery way that made it feel like my framerate was dialed down to the lowest possible setting.

• Lag. Wild West Dynasty hitched up a lot and even crashed a few times in the short time I spent with it. I also got stuck inside walls and rocks several times; at least the developers put in a button to help me get unstuck.

• Dialogue. Even outside of how it’s voiced, Wild West Dynasty’s dialogue carries no emotion or impact. The storyline is cliche and boring, and the dialogue doesn’t help elevate it at all.

💬 Are you going to play Wild West Dynasty or will you skip it? Let us know down below!