Weird West's isometric take on immersive sims might finally make me fall in love with the genre. I've tried before; in fact, I'm still trying - my playthrough of Prey's off to a promising start - but something's still not clicking for me, and Weird West has me thinking that something is literally a matter of perspective. Weird West takes the genre's willingness to say 'yes' to player agency, but unlike the majority of its peers, opts for an isometric view of the action instead of the traditional first-person perspective.
So what does that change? In theory, not a whole lot, but in practice this is the first immersive sim in which I can see strategies forming without having to save-scum my way towards understanding the level first. I can't tell you how many times I've sneakily darted up a wall in Dishonored 2 only to peep over the parapet and find myself face to face with a couple of guards. By contrast, you'll know where most guards are all the way through a level in Weird West. You know the rooftops are clear, you can watch the guard to your left and his colleague to your right simultaneously, and even when hunkered down behind cover you can keep tabs on the path ahead and move that way when it's safe.
The perspective change helps outside of stealth, too. When trying to storm a stronghold with guns and dynamite, you can linger behind a wall as an onrushing guard tries to get an angle on you, and peek out to shoot an oil lamp as soon as they pass it to set them on fire. Setting traps and baiting enemies into them is nothing new for immersive sims, but the isometric view makes it considerably easier to envision and then enact such ploys.
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