Evil West

Evil West is a 2022 third-person shooter game developed by Flying Wild Hog and published by Focus Entertainment. The game was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on 22 November 2022. It received mixed reviews from critics.

Gameplay
Evil West is a third-person shooter. The player assumes control of Jesse Rentier, a vampire hunter. Jesse is equipped with several powerful firearms including a six-shot revolver, a lever-action rifle, and a flamethrower. He also has access to various melee attacks through a specialized gauntlet capable of accumulating electrical energy. Enemies can be stunned and staggered following a melee attack, allowing players to execute them using a special finisher move. Players can use the environment to their advantage. For instance, they can kick enemies into a spike trap, or shoot explosive barrels. Players will occasionally encounter boss characters, which are powerful enemies with unique attack patterns. As the player progresses, they will level up and gain skills and abilities. The campaign can be played cooperatively with another player.

Premise
Jesse Rentier (portrayed by Derek Hagen), one of the last agents of a clandestine vampire-hunting organization, must protect the American frontier from supernatural monstrosities.

Synopsis
Jesse Rentier is an agent of the Rentier Institute, a secret organization dedicated to battling supernatural creatures such as the Sanguisuge A.K.A "Ticks", vampires that have accepted the "Gift of Change" found in blood and prey on humanity. Working together with retired agent Edgar Gravenor (Damian Lynch), they ambush a vampire informant named Chester Morgan, who smuggles blood and lower Sanguisuge beasts for the Highborn vampires. Using his info, they follow the trail of Peter D'Abano (John Chancer), a Highborn vampire that advocates for evolving the Sanguisuge through controlling the Change and declaring war on humanity before their technology develops to the point where it wipes the Sanguisuge out. The Sanguisuge leadership, wanting to stay in the shadows and believing that controlling the Change is blasphemous, reject D'Abano's plan and sentence him and his entire lineage to true death. Jesse and Edgar then ambush D'Abano and capture his head, taking it back to the Manor, the Rentier Institute's headquarters, to be added to their Archives of still-living, talking heads of slain Sanguisuge.

Upon arriving, Jesse has a tense argument with his father William (Brian Protheroe), who wants Jesse to quit being a field agent and take over William's position as head of the Institute. That night is a presentation in front of Assistant Secretary of War James Harrow (Kerry Shale) of a special Gauntlet capable of breaking the magical Glamours the Sanguisuge use to hide themselves and block their lairs. However, D'Abano's daughter Felicity (Emma Ballantine) attacks the Manor with an army of Sanguisige, killing most of the staff and agents stationed there and recovering D'Abano's head. With William critically wounded, Jesse, Edgar, and Harrow flee to the nearby city of Calico where they make contact with the local Rentier Institute cell, led by Dr. Emilia Blackwell (Antonia Bernath). Suspecting that William may have been infected with vampirism by Felicity, Edgar heads off by himself to find a possible cure in the form of a plant known as La Orchid de la Vida from Lake Maurepas. Meanwhile, Jesse works with engineer Vergil Olney to repair the Gauntlet after overusing it fighting off pursuing Sanguisuge.

While recovering the parts needed to repair the Gauntlet, Jesse finds that Felicity has been using a species of super-sized leeches to siphon old blood from the cadavers of mythical pre-Columbian beasts to evolve herself and her Familiars, creating an army of creatures called Foulbloods. These creatures are more primitive and mindless than regular Familiars but have powerful, shape-shifting beast-like forms, and undergo the Change and then reproduce near-instantly compared to the normal, slower method used with human Familiars. Jesse clears out the mining town of Baxter, containing one of these cadavers that was being guarded by Felicity's Familiars. He then finds a second ancient corpse at McCallum Sawmill, one of many properties under the Andalusia Financial Services Group, that is also serving as a farm for Felicity's leeches. After setting the corpse and farm on fire, he returns to Calico to find that his father has indeed been infected by vampire blood and is in the process of turning into Felicity's Familiar.

Short on time, Jesse heads out to find Edgar at Maurepas Swamps, saving him from Foulbloods and securing the La Orchid de la Vida for a cure, which is injected into William. However, William is still briefly telepathically linked with Felicity and warns Jesse that she is in Dickinson, an important rail hub. Despite learning Felicity's location, Harrow orders Jesse to instead head to an oil field in Kingston run by Andalusia, as Andalusia was actually illegally owned by D'Abano. Jesse is to seize documents of the company's holdings and assets for the government and Harrow states that the profits will be used to help fund the weakened Institute. At the site, Jesse encounters Harrow's accountant who thinks that Harrow sent him to rescue him. When Jesse reveals that Harrow did not mention him, the accountant, realising Harrow left him to die, reveals to Jesse that Harrow actually wants to secure the documents to line his pockets. When Jesse confronts him, Harrow, having been promoted to Secretary of War with total control of the Institute, threatens to arrest Jesse, defund the Institute, and destroy his father's legacy if they don't obey him. With encouragement from William, Jesse ignores Harrow and heads to Dickinson, where Felicity, lacking enough leeches after Jesse destroyed her leech farm, is loading train boxcars full of bats filled with ancient blood for transport across the country. Jesse is defeated during a confrontation with Felicity and is unable to prevent her from escaping. After suffering significant injury, Jesse is rescued by a pastor named Stravinsky, who took him to a nearby town to recover. Jesse learns that most of the town's inhabitants have been infected by the bats, with the surviving townspeople barricading themselves in the local church. Stravinsky informs him of a secret Institute cell up in the nearby mountains experimenting with Gauntlet technology using local lightning storms, and agrees to send a telegram to the Institute to confirm while Jesse destroys the local Foulblood nests. Stravinsky also explains that in their previous telegraph to the authorities when the Foulbloods first showed up, they were told that Harrow would handle the problem. However, Harrow lied and did nothing which lead to the Foulbloods running rampant.

Jesse heads to the abandoned Institute lab in the mountains, meeting Vergil there who was sent by William to help further upgrade the Gauntlet using the lab's technology. After increasing the Gauntlet's power, Jesse and Vergil return to Calico, only to be confronted by Harrow, who has discovered they have kept William alive in violation of protocol. He orders Emilia to have Jesse and Vergil arrested, and to interrogate and kill William. When Emilia and the rest of the Calico cell refuse, Harrow leaves, promising to withdraw the U.S. government's support and to reconstruct the Institute under Harrow's name. Jesse then heads out to reunite with Edgar, who had believed Jesse was dead following the incident in Dickinson. Seeking revenge, Edgar had gone after Chester at his weapon-smuggling hideout in the mountains, planning to beat him for Felicity's whereabouts. Irritated by D'Abano and Felicity's overt actions making it harder for the Sanguisuge to hide and survive, Chester willingly tells them that Felicity is using a train manufacturing company called "Persephone" to both breed and transport her creatures across the country, that she is using the bank of Carmine City to fund her operations, and that she is planning to attack Washington D.C. Chester also warns them that the Orchid cure they used on William is only temporary, and his vampiric urges will return upon seeing a drop of blood.

Jesse and Edgar rush back to Calico, but arrive to find out that William had turned in their absence, killed several members of the Calico cell, including Vergil, and then fled. Realizing his father is too far gone, Jesse promises to hunt William down. Jesse follows William's trail to Felicity's base at Persephone, where he reluctantly kills him after finding William has turned into a Highborn. He then proceeds to Felicity's headquarters in Carmine City, where she and D'Abano were using the local bank to finance their activities. After clearing the city of the numerous Familiars and Foulbloods protecting the bank, Jesse learns that Felicity is already gone. However, he is able to recapture D'Abano's still-alive head as it is trying to regenerate in a blood bath. Under interrogation, D'Abano reveals that, due to Jesse's actions in destroying the leech farm and her army at Persephone, Felicity doesn't have the forces necessary to attack the White House so she can turn President Grover Cleveland (Stuart Milligan) into a Familiar. Instead, Felicity has left to ambush President Cleveland as he attends a performance premiere at Chesterfield Opera in D.C. with Harrow and minimum security. Jesse and his friends, after stealing Harrow's blimp, follow Felicity and arrive in the middle of her assault on the opera house. While his friends secure President Cleveland, Jesse confronts Felicity, who has mutated and become deranged from the ancient blood. After a prolonged battle, Jesse finally manages to kill her.

Although Harrow tries to claim credit for the Institute's success, Emilia had already informed President Cleveland of how Harrow has been abusing his position for profit and actively jeopardizing the country, leading to his arrest and dismissal. After Jesse turns down his offer to be the new Secretary of War, President Cleveland promises to return full control of the Rentier Institute to Jesse and give it his full backing in the war against the Sanguisuge. Knowing that improvements need to be made in order to win the war against the Sanguisuge, Jesse and Emilia begin to come up with ideas to rebuild and reform the Rentier Institute.

Development and release
Evil West was developed by Polish studio Flying Wild Hog. The game's combo system was inspired by the Devil May Cry series, while the third-person perspective and melee combat were inspired by 2018's God of War.

Flying Wild Hog and publisher Focus Entertainment announced their partnership in September 2020. The game was announced at The Game Awards 2020. The game was initially set to be released on 20 September 2022 for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, but was later delayed to 22 November 2022.

Reception
Evil West received "mixed or average" reviews from critics for the PC and PS5 versions, while the Xbox Series X/S version received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.