You need these folks to protect each other, take down enemies, and gain better stuff throughout the campaign. Your team is valuable, and their positioning and roles are important because they’re gone forever if the eat a bullet. He was in rough shape, barely useful, but alive - and if he lives, he’s destined to be a resilient tough-guy that’ll last the entirety of Hard West. In my first mission, set on a grisly Cannibal farm, I rescued a tortured ally from a box he’d been kept in. He’s alive because he made a deal with the Devil, but he still needs help to keep himself covered, to take down different enemy types, and cover ground. CompanionsYour main character can only do so much on his own. They know how scary bullets are, and the player needs to respect that, too. I never saw an opponent standing in the open waiting to die. I made sure each of my turns ended with my characters in cover, even if it meant sacrificing efficiency - because risking vulnerability for the sake of covering more ground is rarely worth it. Bullets hit hard, draw blood, and ruin you. You’re a frail human in a tattered shirt, not an armored, amazing warrior. In Hard West, tucking into cover is essential to survival. Protecting yourself is crucial in XCOM, Fire Emblem, Shadowrun, and more. Cover is EverythingExposure is dangerous in any tactics game. Violence is inevitable and explosive, but the lead-in to drawing your weapon has meaning, whether it has to do with the dark story or the deep gameplay systems. Levels have secrets to discover, alternate objectives, some of which have a sense of urgency that leads to careful, thoughtful exploration toward a given place. In Hard West, yes, you have time to scout out enemies, prepare your kill order, and get into cover, but the preparation phase is so much more than this. XCOM doesn’t either, really - you’re allowed to set up and position yourself to initiate - but most of the time you’re on alert immediately or preparing to unleash hell. Play PreparationAs you begin each stage, Hard West doesn’t immediately enter a combat phase.
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