Today Snail Games, the global developer and publisher that’s known for the Ark: Survival Evolved franchise, – alongside their publisher partner developer Wandering Wizard and developer NewGen, announced West Hunt, a social seduction game for PC.

The game is designed for 1-4 players and will be available later this year via Steam Early Access. “West Hunt has allowed Snail Games to step into new territory with the growing social deduction genre,” said the COO of Snail Games, Peter Kang. “The unique blend of mechanics combined with the classic Old West setting is sure to provide tons of hilarious moments, and we can’t wait to see what kind of trouble players get up to in West Hunt.”

West Hunt is set in a small but bustling village in the Old West, that’s filled with kind-hearted folks from all walks of life, but among them hides a wolf in disguise, stirring up trouble right under the villager’s noses: the Outlaw! Lucky for this one-horse town though, there’s a Sherrif around these parts, with a loaded six-shooter right at their hip. After players receive their roles, the deadly game of cat-and-mouse begins!

As the Outlaw, players are tasked with completing all their assigned missions before the timer runs out; such as bribing the Barman, poisoning the water supply, praying for forgiveness, and other activities that a normal Outlaw gets up to in the old west. Completing all these missions will increase the Outlaw’s notoriety, giving the Sherrif key information to help track them down and put a permanent end to their bad-guy antics. As the Outlaw, players can do optional side missions to reduce their notoriety in the town and blend in with the other townsfolk. Surely another spitting competition won’t hurt anybody, right?

Meanwhile, as the goody-two-shoes Sherrif, players must carefully observe the behaviour in town and deduce the identity of the Outlaw and kill them within the time limit, but don’t get trigger happy, as shooting an innocent villager will result in the Outlaw winning the game. So conserve those bullets! As the notoriety of the Outlaw grows, hints such as their last known location, their last completed mission, or uncompleted missions can be collected from mailboxes around the town. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work.

West Hunt will release into Steam Early Access in Summer this year, with a full release coming sometime down the road. The game features randomized events for every game, 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2 team-ups for matches, in-game voice chat, and customizable looks for the Sherrif including personalized winning and losing emotes. The trailer can be viewed above.