Remember to (up)rate. You can Favourite the guide too - it will show up higher in the list for you and you will be able to access it via one click after opening the Steam overlay :)!

This is my first Steam guide.

I've collaborated on a bunch of different guides, but mostly for clarity, formatting and clearer grammar purposes, with a dash or two of my original content. I'd like to thank all the guide authors I helped here - they put a tremendous amount of work in their guides and only my OCD for nitpicking stood behind me and the arcane knowledge hidden within. They graciously gave me a chance to fix that block and I had my hand in the making of those fantastic guides.

I obviously want to thank the developers of Westerado - I have had over 60 hours of fun with the game. They responded to bug reports and fixed what they could, given the faulty Flash origin. The one I've found was even was kind enough to answer some questions about the game.

I also wanted to thank the authors of these two guides:

Rootin' Tootin' Guide to Achievements

Quick and Dirty Guide to Quests

My intention is that this guide becomes the third guide that will make the ultimate guide trinity with those two. (Only three favourited guides are shown near the top of the first screen of the Steam overlay guide section.)

Don't forget to (up)rate and Favourite if you want to use it more often. The favourite and rate buttons are near the top of the guide.

There is a table of contents on the right side - click a title to jump to a topic of your interest.

... is meant to be played through more than once. It is all about the story and replayability. And achievements - we like those.

I have talked with one of the developers and he told me that ~80% of the people finish the game only once. And then they usually whine about it being short.

If you rush through it and get to an ending and you think you are finished with the game - you're doing yourself a disservice. This game has no less than 7 endings (I'm only counting those I can tell from the top of my head).


The game is from April of 2015 and it's ported from Flash. I think the last updates were made somewhen in 2016.

Expect bugs, sometimes annoying, very rarely permanently breaking savegames.

I will tell you how to try and remedy that near the end of the guide.

• This guide will try not to repeat the things from the three other guides:
  
  • Rootin' Tootin' Guide to Achievements
    
  • Quick and Dirty Guide to Quests
    
  • Golden Buffalo & The Wierd West achievements guide
• Anything about co-op except two things:
  
  • Co-op mode absolutely requires a controller (you can't even start a co-op savegame without one connected and detected)
    
  • As far I've seen, co-op mode makes the screen zoom out in big locations till you are both on the screen
• Anything about playing on a mac. You're on your own.
  
• Anything about playing on a linux system. You're on your own, but since you're playing on a linux, I trust you know more about it than I do anyway.

Spoilers ahead. In [spoiler] tags, though, so don't be scared too much.

There are various endings to the game. Which ending you're going to get is a random choice between the eligible choices for you at the moment of finishing the final confrontation. If there is only one eligible choice, it will have 100% occurrence rate.

As far as I can tell, the eligibility for the endings takes into consideration:

• How many civilians you kill ("Wanted dead or alive" and "Wanted dead or deader" bandits are not considered civilians)
  
• Which big questlines you - I'm not 100% certain here - finish. These include:
  
  • Miss Tress love life
    
  • The Indian questline
    
  • The Ranchers' questline
    
  • The Tycoon's questline
• For at least three endings, it matters which big questlines you don't start/finish (again, a bit uncertain here, but I presume it's about finishing them)

As far as I can tell, it does not take into consideration:

• If you did the "starter" missions - talking to Sheriff and the Bartender
  
• The Banker's mission
  
• Talking to Miss Tress at any or all of these locations: Jailhouse/Sheriff, Saloon, Bob's, Tycoon's
  
• Weapons you have or used to have
  
• Number of the finished or failed "Wanted" missions
  
• The sister (or brother, if you're playing the sister) questline
  
• Ostrich Banditos
  
• Number of the bandits you aggro-ed, but didn't kill
  
• If your savegame has the ironman mode on
  
• The number of times you've died
  
• The time it took you to finish the game
  
• The poker mini-game
  
• Sheriff's "questline" and/or using him as your personal meatshield during 3 protection missions
  
• Probably more

Examples:
You finish only the Rancher's questline - you get the - not spoiling anything - "Rancher ending".
You don't finish any of the big questlines - you get the "Luke" ending.
You don't finish any of the big questlines and kill lots of civilians - you get the "Tyler Durden" ending.
You finish all the big questlines - you get 25% for each of their respective endings.

The wanted man has to look exactly like the one on the poster. No exceptions. Ever. Size and material of the belt buckle included.

If I recall correctly, the "dead or deader" posters can have 50$ or 100$ reward.
"Alive" posters bandits are worth 250$.
To catch someone alive, you need to buy bolas first (at the Clintville Station screen there is a weapon shop to the west of the NTS). The bolas is 250$, so once you have that money, the first bandit caught alive is going to pay it back and every next one is major currency boost.

Hatness or hatlessness of a Wanted bandit does not matter. This can be exploited for Mrs. Hatt's hats mission, as you can just search for the posters with hats you didn't yet show to Mrs. hat (8 designs could be gotten from bandits that way).

If you catch the wanted-alive bandit with bolas and then shoot their hat off, they're going to rip the rope apart just to be able to put their hands in the air in a gesture of submission. Talk about power of fear. I am not 100% sure if it's possible without catching them first with the bolas, but you can actually lead them without them being roped like an animal just by drawing any weapon.

Once you hit a wanted-alive bandit with bolas, you have to come near them with your weapon out and they start walking in the opposite direction (a bit like non-aggressive animals in the game). The weapon doesn't need to be ♥♥♥♥♥♥ (as in "ready to fire at next keypress").
This is a bit problematic, because civilians don't like you waving a gun around, especially ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ones and you do have to push the bad guys. Use the bolas - civilians (and bandits) basically ignore it, even at the "ready to throw" stage.

If you can't or don't want to lead your bandit to an NTS station, you can always make them walk to Clintville just by coming near the edge of the screen. Sometimes it's possible to lose your bandit in the no-man's land between the screens permanently (you'll get a "mission failed" notification), but sometimes I managed to salvage them by going a bit further from the border of the initial screen and only then drawing weapon and coming back to the border - they showed up on the second screen.

If you can, lead the bandit to an NTS station. They will whine a bit and you can ride next to them to Clintville.

If you don't have a weapon drawn once you get of your horse in Clintville, the bandit will not go to the screen up north. You can go just a tiny bit north-west (two pixels in each should suffice) and then pull a weapon out - the bandit should just go straight to the jailhouse. Enter the jailhouse after them and just pull the weapon on them still inside the door - it's enough to push them into their holding cell.

You can easily finish the wanted missions if you know the mechanics of Wanted men spawn. There are only a few locations possible.

• Near Clintville means it's NEVER on the Church screen (north of the Clintville and on the way to the graveyard) - the screens included are:
  
  • The Clintville itself - the bandits walk the streets sometimes
    
  • The screen to the immediate west of the Clintville. If there are more than two people there (a woman and a man), the bandit is the third one.
    
  • The screen to the immediate east of Clintville (between the Mine enterance in the north, Riverside home in the east, station in the south and Clintville in the west). I think there are usually 3 to 4 people there, if there are more than 4, your guy is probably one of them.
    
  • The screen you get to after using the western south exit of Clintville - the one you can see Mrs. Tress dancing on the porch
    
  • The screen you get to after using the eastern south exit of Clintville - the bandit will be the only one there
  
  
• Near [Clintville] Station - the screens included are:
  
  • The Clintville Station itself - the bandits walk the streets sometimes
    
  • The screen to the south of the station - the bandit will be the only one there. CAUTION - BUG: Do not pick up the money near the north-east exit, or the bandit will become aggressive and the music on this screen will permanently change to battle music. If you want to pick it up, finish or fail the wanted mission first and only then pick it up.
    
  • The screen to the west of the station - the bandit will be the only one there
    
  • The screen to the east of the station - the bandit will be mingling with the other bandits there. They will not react if you snipe him down from afar (if you pull out your weapon and nobody draws theirs you should be in the clear), but they will get angry if you try to catch him with bolas and start pushing them around to drive him to the Sheriff. It's best to abandon such a mission (not even fail, as you can swap posters) during a pacifist run
    
  • The screen to the south to the screen to the east of the station. The bandit will be the only one there most probably.
    
  • I'm not sure about the screen to the north of the Station. If anyone could confirm if they spawn there it would be appreciated.
  
  
• Near Santa Anna - the screens included are:
  
  • To the immediate west of the Santa Anna city
    
  • The screen just south of the immediate west of Santa Anna city
    
  • If anyone knows of any other confirmed "Santa Anna" locations, I'd be glad to hear about them.
  
  
• Near Desert - the screens included are:
  
  • I have no bloody idea except for the screen to the immediate east of Santa Anna. The guy is usually sitting near the south border. He should be the only person there.
    
  • If anyone knows of any other confirmed "Desert" locations, I'd be glad to hear about them.

There are maximum of 11 "Wanted" bounty posters in the game at any time. Every time you enter the game (create a new game or load it), the posters should get topped off (with replacing the old ones) - basically the bounties are made anew.

The locations of the posters are as follows:

• 1 on the outside of the Jailhouse in Clintville
  
• 6 on the inside of the Jailhouse in Clintville
  
• 2 outside of the Clintville Saloon
  
• 2 outside of the Santa Anna Saloon

Once you are holding a poster, you can swap it with any other poster you can interact with.

The posters inside the Jailhouse are grouped in two groups of threes. You can interact only with two of each group when full. If you want a different one than the four you've got, you can take one (provided you're not holding one currently) and then you can access the third one from the group. Annoying, I know.

• The murderer is the quickest shooter in the West - he does not hesitate. If you're near enough his firing line (or cone, when he's using shotgun), he'll just shoot you, even if you were just sprinting through.
• If you're playing with The Brother and/or Iron-man mode:
  do not accuse the murderer, just shoot him.
  
• Hats don't fly away indoors (including mines/caves).
  
• The murderer cannot be hit with bolas before the final showdown in his hidden lair. If you're not sure if you got the murderer or not, you can test if he's the one with it - the projectile will just disappear if it's him.
  
• The navy pixels on the map screen are worth checking out.
  
• You can make/trick the sheriff into helping you in all three of the protection missions
  
• Bolas as the only weapon that doesn't end up with instant aggression from everywhere when pulled out close to people (or even "shot" - they end up panicking and running away and keep that way unless they've been angered beforehand)
  
• You don't have to kill the guys having a party on the tracks. You could pay them, but there is a character in the game that will make them run the second that he's seen.
  
• Aggroed bandits stop chasing you (each individual) once you shoot their hat off - once you do it for every bandit on the screen, there is no more need to shoot (well, except wanton murder). Do it in mines to get free hats that won't fly away.
  
• The rifle shots are penetrating the whole length of the screen at the same time and have 2 pixel height. The destructive power is at the visible dotted line when the weapon is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ (ready to fire) and one pixel down, so if something was "in your sights" before taking aim, it will still get shot after you take aim and fire immediately.
  
• If you pick up any money on a screen with any bandit (be it the random bandits that try to scare you or a poster bandit), they become aggressive (unless you shoot their hats off or kill them). Be prepared to run or shoot.
  
• I think there is only one situation in the game that someone forgives you something and stops being aggressive towards you. I can't recall another. If you know about more than one such situation, please, tell me in the comments.
  
• To save the game - go past a screen border. Conversely, if you make a big mistake (not in dialogue, though) and don't change the screen, there is a chance that going to menu and back will retroactively prevent the said mistake.
  
• There is money around. For free. No bandits/strings attached. Some spots Clintville, Fort Motors, Oil Tycoon's, Santa Anna.
  
• There are two tips to be gotten from the poker players (in either group/saloon). You have to either lose 40$-ish (you can just go all in in the first draw) or win everything from the table. They will need a break if you clean them out, but once they're ready to play, the small blind will be 10$.
  
• Sometimes a weapon-and-slot combination glitches. There are two ways to fix it:
  
  • If the glitched weapon was in the second slot:
    
    • You will have to buy a third one. No way around that, sorry.
      
    • Buy another weapon and swap it for the glitched one
      
    • Re-buy the weapon that glitched and swap it again with the just-bought one.
  • If the glitched weapon was in the third slot:
    
    • Try out a different weapon
      
    • Return it
      
    • If it didn't work, well, you have to actually buy another weapon, swap it for the glitched one, re-buy the glitched weapon. Usually works with the try-out, though.
• If you fire a rifle when riding a horse, you'll look torn in half like this guide's avatar.
  
• The best weapon to use in close-range fighting is the tomahawk because of its large hitbox. It can't hit higher than it's aimed, though.
  
• Shotgun (and tomahawk and double revolvers if used skilfully enough) is able to get rid of a scorpion in one shot.
  
• Scorpions can and will damage or kill you. They can bury/hide behind bodies of other animals.
  
• Coyotes will damage/kill you if given chance. Don't give them a chance.
  
• Snakes, buffaloes, rabbits, chickens, birds, lizards and vultures cannot damage you under any circumstances.
  
• Once you finish the try-out shooting range, you get an assessment of your run/skill (shots fired, average accuracy %, time in seconds).
  
• It's possible to finish the shooting range in 10 shots. (With my favourite weapon combination).
  
• Once you get some money and you're intent on having a particular visage, you can re-roll the shop using "quit to menu" trick more than two times in a minute. After a few minutes you should have your desired clothes.
  
• To buy a belt and buckle, you have to buy the whole ensemble. There is no other way. Once you know what final visage you want, start with the belt and buckle and build up piece by piece. Once you get some spare money for clothes
  
• You can get your old clothes (the starting ones) from the shop if you want - go to any of the mannequins and ask for "your old duds". You won't get a refund, though.
  
• Except for army and gravedigger's clothes, every other combination for a male (except shirtless, sorry!) you see in the game is possible to buy in the shop (in single parts, at least). You can have no bandanna, be fat or thin.
  
• The sister has only 4 possible full sets of clothes, including the starting one.
  
• Fun fact: fat people have most of their sprites exactly the same dimensions as slim people in the game. One of the sprites that differentiates them is the single ♥♥♥♥♥♥ gun pose - you either have a potbelly then or not. Remarkable.

• There are 15 hats designs in the game.
  
  • Your regular starting hat (a copy can be... obtained from bandits)
    
  • A non-regular hat that you will find at any decent hat shop immediately after starting the game (a copy can be... obtained from bandits)
    
  • 8 designs to be taken from bandits
    
  • 2 hats that you can't get from bandits (one of which has only 2 copies in the game world before you bring it to the Hattery)
    
  • 1 unique hat
    
  • 2 unobtainable hats (army and gravedigger's)
• Projectiles don't cast shadows, whether they're bullets, bolas or tomahawks.
  
• Screenshots are located at:
  <Drive of primary Steam installation>:\<Main Steam folder>\userdata\<your usernumber>\760\remote\275200\screenshots
  
• Saves are located at:
  %UserProfile%\My Documents\Westerado DB
  Please let me know if this is right, I have a weird Windows language installation
  
• Configuration is located at the same spot as saves but it's actually pretty worthless, as the second you restart the game, the keybindings will default
  
• You can't re-bind the "P" button for map/quests/murderer/help screens

This section will be filled with the answers to questions I receive in the comments - if I, or someone else commenting, can provide them.

It's easy, cowboy. Shoot the chosen weapon twice and reload once. Do not ♥♥♥♥/ready to fire.
Alternatively, you can shoot the chosen weapon once, switch it, shoot another weapon, reload the weapon, switch back to chosen weapon.