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Hard West 2 review




Just about anything can be made better by the addition of the supernatural. Pirates of the Caribbean exploited a winning formula with its ghostly buccaneers, Stranger Things puts the demons in D&D, and Hard West has hit a home run with its tales of the weird wild west. An XCOM-like tactics game, except when it isn’t, Hard West 2 brings some up-to-date ideas to the poker table...
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Loading Time Issues Fix - Join the Beta Branch!

Howdy again all,

Hopefully, you enjoyed our last update; THANK YOU AGAIN! We wanted to follow up as some players reported issues of longer loading times. For some, this simply caused extended loading times; for others crashes or incrementally increasing load times as you play longer in Hard West 2. We know this is impacting your gameplay experience and we want to address it as soon as humanly possible.

For this reason, we're opening a Beta Branch in Steam for those affected. This branch does not contain ALL the content incoming for Patch 1 that addresses a rebalance and some quality of life issues + localization. Please keep in mind that this is a test build that’s meant to solve the issue as quickly as possible and has not been tested as thoroughly as we would an official full patch release. If you encounter any issues, please do let us know in the Steam thread here. However, this should solve the memory leak issue and get you playing happily again.

Here is what is coming in the FULL patch later in August. For those who would like to jump into the Beta branch rather than waiting until then, instructions are below:



To join the branch:

1) Launch Steam and open your Library. If you have Steam open, please restart it.



2) Right-click on Hard West 2 and go to properties



3) Go to the betas tab and choose Test Branch for Patch 1 Beta Build. There is no password.



Huge thanks again for all your support of the game and we sincerely apologize for this issue that might have made it less than ideal. We hear you, and are continuing to make Hard West 2 even better with your help and feedback.

Post-launch updates and a huge THANK YOU!!!!!!!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are truly overwhelmed by your positive reception and support of Hard West 2!

Thank you for all the support, feedback, reviews and most importantly the trust that you’ve shown us as a team. We're blown away to have managed to reach the #1 Global Best Selling Game spot on Steam and also to have the #1 most watched stream yesterday. None of this would have been possible without the support of every one of you, so we just wanted to take the time to properly thank you!

We are thrilled to hear you’re enjoying the game and the experience that it offers. Of course, this is just the start though, as we’re committed to continuing to improve the game and making it a better experience for everyone. We aim to do this by addressing all of the feedback that we receive on Steam, social and Discord which highlight issues that detract people from enjoying their time with Hard West 2. We believe that the best way to do this is to be transparent and clearly communicate with players on how we’re planning to improve the game moving forward. So consider this the first step on this journey and us opening up the direct dialogue with all of you.

We hear you loud-and-clear on the need to lower the overall loading times. The upcoming Patch Number 1 should address issues on PCs using 8GB or less RAM and mitigate issues in longer sessions. It’s scheduled to be released later this month and we already have the list of critical issues that it will certainly address. We want to take the time to communicate how this patch will improve the game, so we created the image below which outlines the patch highlights:



This is of course just the highlights though and we want to hear from you what else we can do to improve the game. So tell us what other fixes and improvements you would like to see in the near future for Hard West 2? Let us know in the comments or Steam discussions HERE!

So far we have only talked about the upcoming patch and game issues, but we know that some of you are experiencing problems which exist beyond just the game. Here are the main two that we wanted to call out

  • Deadman’s Gun Delay: We know that most of you want the Deadman's Gun and we can’t wait to get this in your hands. Unfortunately, we’re still waiting for Steam to deliver the keys for this item so that we can start distributing it, but we’re in constant communication with them. So we can guarantee that it’s coming, but it just took a bit more time to arrange than we would have liked. But rest assured that it will be with you shortly and thanks so much for your patience! Sign up HERE.

  • Demo Save Issues: We have already posted this in the forum, but we wanted to go out of our way to communicate this again. Please DO NOT play from your Demo save. We don't recommend using the old saves at the moment, even if the game recognizes them. We have some users reporting that it might cause problems later on and have reported that the game goes back to the beginning in some cases. This is true for all demos as games update upon launch and we’re limited to how we can address this. So to ensure that you enjoy the best experience with the game, do not use your demo saves.

Once again, all of this is just the beginning though, so please don’t hesitate to tell us what you would like to see improved and where you would like to see the future of Hard West 2 to go. We want to make sure you’re happy with the game and it becomes one of your favorites.

Thanks again for your support and let’s talk!

Hard West 2 is now available!

Howdy Community.

Today we’re thrilled to share that Hard West 2 is now available for $29.99/€24.99, with a 10% off launch week discount available until August 11. Welcome to the Wild West and thanks for playing the Demo and for all your feedback. We hope you hop on that Ghost Train and enjoy the ride.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1282410/Hard_West_2/
Today on August 4th we have some streams planned that should tickle your fancy. Catch them here right after you see this announcement and on Twitch.

In the meantime, enjoy our fancy new artwork and trailer.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Now for some business. You may recall back when we ran our betas, we'd promised that participants would automatically receive an in-game item called "The Dead Man's Gun." We're still doing that. Due to a LIGHT technical snafu, we won't be able to get those out based on who played the betas. That's on us, and we're sorry for the inconvenience.



To ameliorate this situation, we kindly ask that you fill out this handy Google Form so we can send you a code to unlock the aforementioned exclusive weapon. That's whether you played the beta or not. We're sorry, you're welcome, thank you, and we're sorry. Happy Hard West 2 day!

Hard West 2 review: rootin' tootin' tactical shootin'


Ice Code Games may have called it Hard West 2, but 'round these parts we refer to it as "The Laughing Deer Show". New to town, are ya? Let me clue you in. Laughing Deer is a six-foot man of raw muscle and rage, a native American warrior with shoulders like a pair of yoked oxen and a personality best described as "barely contained". Unlike the rest of his posse, which includes a cowboy without a shadow, a woman with ties to the occult, and one very stubborn corpse, Laughing Deer doesn't really "do" guns. While his compatriots are all crouched behind crates, ricocheting bullets off buckets and wheelbarrows to hit enemies from behind, Laughing Deer is getting in their faces (shortly before his club gets significantly further into their faces).


Now, bringing a club to a gunfight might not seem like the smartest idea. But while pistols require two of a gunslinger's action points to shoot, and rifles take all three, it only takes one action point to whack some neckerchief-wearing bandit with a big ol' stick. And Laughing Deer whacks a whole point of damage harder than normal, meaning he can rush foes and nail them into the ground with a couple of hard swings before they can pull the trigger. Better yet, killing an enemy completely refills a character's action points in Hard West, meaning that, when set up right, Laughing Deer can ping around the battlefield like a weaponised pinball.


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