Developer WolfEye Studios and publisher Devolver Digital are still planning on releasing Weird West in 2022, but the game won't be arriving when it was originally planned. It turns out that WolfEye and Devolver Digital have decided the game needs a bit more work and have pushed it back from its January 11 release date to later in the spring.
Former Dishonored developer Raphael Colantonio first announced Weird West back in 2019 and the game has been steaming towards release ever since. The top-down isometric RPG has been described by its developers as being an "immersive sim" that will offer a kind of dark fantasy in the Wild West that combines cowboys with fantastical creatures.
On Wednesday, Colantonio took to Twitter to announce that Weird West is being moved back from its expected January 11 release date, to March 31. In a short video, the Dishonored co-creator explained that WolfEye had been holding a closed beta for the game. He added that while the people playing it were loving their time in the world, the beta also brought to light some changes that needed to be made.
The developer went on to explain that the company wants to iron some stuff out because it's wanting to stick to its long history of delivering the best immersive sim possible. He also talked about how he understands that when it comes to this kind of game, there are a ton of different things that can happen. Some of those things are great and some of them are "not so great." In order to avoid there being a bunch of problems when Weird West was originally expected to launch, the developers are going to take a step back.
The good news here is that the delayed launch is just over two months so those who were looking forward to playing Weird West won't have to wait all that long. These kinds of short delays have become more commonplace in the industry over the last two years and generally do mean there are just some slight tweaks needed.
Interestingly enough, pushing back the launch of Weird West could bring it closer to the release of another game that has very similar vibes. Evil West is also geared at combining fantastical beasts and monsters - mostly in the form of vampires - with the Old West. Developed by Flying Wild Hog, the big difference in that game is that it has a third-person shooter point of view rather than top down.
Weird West releases March 31 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
