Howdy ho buckaroo. I see y’all eyein’ that Red Dead Redemption 2, hankering to see the game mosey its approach on to the PC. Well, pull in your horns, duster. Ain’t no person stated nothing about that, no approach, no how. But dang son, don’t be gettin’ your dander up. This right here PC ain’t lackin’ for hard-livin’, hard-ridin’ videogames that evoke the spirit of the frontier.
In different phrases, we nonetheless don’t know when Rockstar’s subsequent entry to the Red Dead collection will arrive on the great ship desktop. While we glance on green-eyed as our console counterparts bask within the glow of quaint prairies, snow-dusted mountaintops, and limitless plains, the watch for a Red Dead Redemption 2 PC release date goes on.
So holster that massive iron, pack a bottle of moonshine, saddle up that mustang, and journey out into the sundown with these handy-dandy alternate options to Rockstar’s premier western.
Let’s start proceedings with a criminally underrated collection.
CALL OF JUAREZ GUNSLINGER
The Call of Juarez collection by no means actually took the world by storm. Call of Juarez and Bound in Blood had been competent-but-bland shooters, and Call of Juarez: The Cartel was an authorized locomotive wreck. When Gunslinger got here alongside – proper after The Cartel – few had been anticipating a lot. How improper they had been. Witty, fast-paced, and filled with satisfying arcade capturing, Gunslinger stands out as among the finest Western shooters in historical past.
Witty, fast-paced, and filled with satisfying arcade capturing
Gunslinger follows Silas Greaves, an outdated bounty hunter, as he recounts his life story to a roomful of saloon patrons. He serves because the narrator as you play via his feats of closely embellished derring-do. Red Dead Redemption followers will discover some acquainted mechanics, most notably the Dead Eye type bullet-time and duel methods (additionally a standby of the Call of Juarez games).
Don’t go in anticipating a game as big as Red Dead Redemption – you’ll in all probability have the ability to beat Gunslinger in below ten hours. But should you’re after a well-polished shooter with a comedic and surprisingly intelligent story, Gunslinger is a simple advice.
Hard West
You like grit? ‘Cause Hard West has true grit, accomplice. This XCOM-inspired turn-based technique game takes place in a the American Old West, however with a supernatural twist. If you loved the mysterious encounters with the Strange Man in Red Dead Redemption, Hard West has received loads of spooky encounters. Zombies, ghosts, demons, and even informal chats with Death and offers with the Devil are simply half and parcel of life on the Hard West frontier.
Related: Desperados 3 is on its approach, too
Gameplay-wise, Hard West is break up in two: a stable, if possibly a bit shallow, squad technique game, and an overworld with textual content journey sequences. The actual shine right here comes within the stage design, sinister ambiance and old-west flavour.
Fallout: New Vegas
Who stated wild-west adventures need to be set within the outdated west? Well, whoever stated it was improper, as a result of Fallout: New Vegas brings the spirit of the wild borderlands to futuristic nuclear apocalypse. Though set within the remote way forward for the 23rd century, New Vegas tells a quintessentially Wild West story. Encroaching armies to the east and west, combating tooth and nail for an important useful resource, and the hapless locals get caught within the center.
New Vegas makes use of the identical engine and tonnes of the identical property from Fallout 3, nevertheless it’s the writing the place New Vegas actually stands other than its predecessor – private tales of affection, loss and revenge, the explosive interplay of clashing political philosophies, and the day-to-day struggling and scraping to outlive on a harsh frontier. New Vegas has a lot to supply anybody searching for a well-written revenge narrative to interchange that of Red Dead Redemption.
Once you’re finished with the primary game, you may lengthen the New Vegas expertise by a whole bunch of hours by making use of the game’s wonderful modding group. Standout mods such because the New Vegas Bounties collection carry much more Wild West flavour.
Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD
Remember the entire bounty-hunting system from Red Dead Redemption? Ever assume it’d be higher should you had been searching bizarre aliens, incapacitating them by capturing lovable little creatures into their faces with a crossbow? Yes, I assumed so, too. Thankfully, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath fulfills that bizarrely-specific fantasy of ours, mixing the trademark Oddworld … effectively, oddness … with an old school backwater setting.
Stranger’s Wrath switches effortlessly between third-person exploration and platforming, and first-person sharp-shooting. Using a variety of pocket-sized creatures as ammunition, the eponymous Stranger brings quite a lot of old-west gribblies to justice, lifeless or alive.
WESTERADO: DOUBLE BARRELED
We all have busy lives, and generally you may’t face trekking via 50+ hours of gameplay to get story. Luckily, Westerado provides an interesting thriller narrative that’s finished in a matter of hours, however is endlessly replayable.
Find the assassin and produce them to justice
The primary setup of Westerado is easy. Someone killed your loved ones. You don’t know something about them besides one essential element. You journey throughout a surprisingly massive and detailed world, doing odd-jobs and soiled offers in trade for extra particulars concerning the assassin. Once you have got sufficient clues, yow will discover the assassin hiding in plain-sight someplace on the planet and produce them to justice.
Westerado is brief, however the assassin is totally different each time, and the way in which you behave whereas searching him provides you a myriad of various endings and unlockables. To cap it off, the 2D gunplay is surprisingly satisfying, with nice animations and sound results.
Steamworld Heist
It’s robust to choose a single SteamWorld game to advocate. SteamWorld Dig and Dig 2 are each wonderful metroidvania adventures, and Heist is a turn-based tactical pleasure with endearing characters and nice mechanics. However, Heist additionally helps you to shoot off folks’s hats and put on them. If there’s something extra Wild West than capturing off varmints’ hats, we’ve but to listen to about it – so Heist is happening the listing.
Related: Why Steamworld Heist is one of the best shooters on PC
SteamWorld Heist follows Captain Piper and her rag-tag crew of Steambot area pirates as they heist their approach throughout the universe, dealing with sneaky scrapbots, snooty and militaristic petrolbots, and a newly woke up historical robotic evil.
The flip primarily based mechanics are deceptively deep – the core mechanics are easy, however there’s a whole lot of room for technique. Using ricochets and trick pictures can imply the distinction between success and failure, and did we point out that you simply shoot folks’s hats off?
Hunt: Showdown
We’re within the outdated deep south for this one – ain’t no deserts right here, it’s all stinking bogland so far as the attention can see.
While nonetheless in Early Access, Hunt: Showdown already provides a novel expertise – a mixture of L4D-style horde co-op and PUBG-style battle royale. Four to 5 groups of two hunters every are dropped right into a zombie infested swamp, and tasked with defeating a hideous boss monster hidden someplace within the open-world. Players can discover clues, nail down the placement, battle the monster, declare the bounty, and escape… or you possibly can simply watch for another person to do this, then shoot them and steal their stuff.
Hunt: Showdown isn’t for everybody. It’s sluggish and methodical, and is engineered to trigger most frustration. Doing all of the work to hunt your quarry, solely to be blindsided and robbed on the final second, by no means isn’t a ache. But should you’re the type of low-down varmint who’d shoot a person only for loud night breathing too loud, Hunt: Showdown would possibly simply be the game for you.
Read extra: Here are the best Wild West games on PC
There you have got it, pardner, the Red Dead Redemption PC alternate options you have to be taking part in to fill the months earlier than Rockstar’s Western sequel makes its approach onto PC. Of course, which means there’s a crossover with our listing of one of the best Western games on PC. That stated there are another titles on that listing should you simply love squinting thoughtfully into the sundown and holding up liqueur shops. When RDR2 does land, it’s a lifeless cert for our greatest PC games however, within the meantime, we hope the titles above make the wait really feel at the very least rather less agonising.
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