Screenshots
Watch trailer on Steam ↗Defiled West
Mindmoss · Published by Mindmoss · Official site ↗
Last updated 28 Sept 2026
A top-down Western Action RPG set in a desolate & mutated frontier. Discover and overpower furiously unstable foes that waver the rules of life and death. Collect and upgrade powerful weapons and wield a variety of otherworldly gadgets. Reclaim what was lost, one building at a time.
Adventure, Indie, RPG · 2026 · More free games
Explore a desolate Western frontier in Defiled West, where each building holds secrets to uncover. Engage in intense action against unstable enemies and craft your arsenal with unique gadgets.
About this game
The walls between worlds are thinning, and the Wild West has little hope of being tamed. Usurped by vile forces, the guardians of the Ethereal Rift were left buried with their boots on, opening the floodgates to a tidal wave of corruption and decay across the Famine Frontier.
As the last surviving member of the rift guardians, you're presented with a choice. You can sip your whiskey and watch the darkness devour the land you once swore to protect... Or you can take up arms and fight for the once-proud frontier!
Start your journey at Riftwood Ranch and venture through seven carefully-crafted locations, each one crawling with all manner of unfriendly folk. From the predictably slow undead to the relentless storehands and mischievous poltergeists, there's a guaranteed fresh hell lurking around every corner.
Level-based Progression
Clearing a town doesn't mean much if you leave the buildings brimming with the dead. Whether you're sealing rifts, fighting off hordes, or simply evicting unsavoury squatters, each outpost launches a new assortment of challenges your way. Greet them face-first and unlock new weapons, gadgets and unique abilities!
Explore thoroughly, and you may even find ways to bring your old gear up a notch.
The Soul Scale
Half dead, half alive, and all vengeance. Your soul is tethered to an ethereal scale granting benefits both earthly and other-worldly. Unleash a pulse of spectral energy, empty your chambers in a cyclone of lead, or absorb incoming damage and reflect it back at your adversaries. The abilities at your disposal rely on the balance of your soul - avoid taking too much damage, but be careful you don't deal too much damage either!
Your ties to the spectral realm spare you from dying by traditional means, but keep your wits about you; an unbalanced soul can quickly lead to your demise. Grievous wounds might be remedied by second chances, but if you lose control of your Soul Scale, you'll find that you've become fully mortal... Or completely spectral. You won't be able to survive either way.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- OS: Windows 10 and above
- Processor: Anything post 2010
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Built in
- Storage: 500 MB available space
Recommended
- OS: Windows 10 and above
- Processor: Anything post 2014
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Dedicated GPU ( > GTX 710)
- Storage: 500 MB available space
Supported Languages
*languages with full audio support
Latest news
Patch NotesOfficial
Defiled West Demo - Patch Seven!
As work continues on our latest town Fort Experiment, we are updating the demo with some of our most recent features and bug fixes: Introducing the Where Wagon!The weapon wagon has been reworked to:Provide hints as to where players should travel next.Allow the storage of items and gadgets.Still acts as a way to retrieve your weapons.Changes & ImprovementsUpdated the ground texture in Stickstead.Rescue a new NPC from Brainsbury's to unlock the updated weapon wagon.New building title cards that appear when viewing a hint from the weapon wagon.Trying to quit the game via the pause menu during levels will now show a confirmation popup to inform players that their progress has not been saved.Added title cards to buildings.Bug FixesFixed an issue that prevented weapon reload times from being less than 1 second.Sheriff Brutality is no longer unkillable after reloading a checkpoint.Dying in levels after defeating a boss with a checkpoint no longer breaks the game.Fixed an issue that allowed weapons to be fired while reloading in settings that provide infinite ammo.Fixed a breaking issue with the ethereal rift skip tutorial pedestal where using it would crash the game.Thanks for reading! Please visit our new feedback form here to help us improve the demo! All the best - The Mindmoss TeamRead full article on Community Announcements (marshs)AnnouncementsOfficial
Developer Diary #5
Fort ExperimentAfter travelling via Banshees River for hours on end, you spot an imposing structure in the distance. With common sense at hand, you turn right toward it as you're certain it's probably safe. When you wash ashore, a tall cabin stands before you. Everything would look normal if it weren't for the metal sharks surrounding your boat. The door creeks open and you wander inside. A guardian stands before you, just like you, but something is wrong. It's body is twisted, jaw unhinged. There are so many.--New FacesFor the past few weeks we've been working on the next major location, Fort Experiment. Standing tall for decades, the fort has been repurposed by an enemy with a unique interest in your soul altering abilities. The Chimeron. Chimeron arrived here long before anyone else. Discovering a source of untapped technology, he took over the crumbling fort and restored it. This map will be covered in a unique kind of enemy. Experiments have been conducted on countless guardians who fell at the beginning of the apocalypse. Some more successful than others. Without spoiling too much, these enemies are largely mashups of other foes you'll encounter throughout the game - with the exception of two. This is the first time we've intentionally tried to "copy" from other enemies, but as usual there are enough new enemies that things aren't repetitive. New LocationsWe cant share too much of this yet, but Fort Experiment is quite a large map. Bordered by two bodies of water, it features the Traveller's Cabin, Oilfield Stables and Boathouse. The rest of the level is contained within the fort itself. Housing 4 unique barracks levels and two larger areas: The Chapel and The War Room.Expect to see new mechanics such as fishing and shock gadgets, alongside new art, sounds and secrets to discover. Fort Experiment is a major town, so will include the usual chores, bounties, minigames and other recurring aspects. We've also hidden one of our most secret weapons in this town... b...Read full article on Community Announcements (Tbage)AnnouncementsOfficial
Developer Diary #4
A Year of MindmossHello! We're back once again with a new dev log, only this time it's in celebration of the Mindmoss birthday! We've been working long and hard over the past year to add all sorts of new and exciting features to Defiled West. In this log, we'll be reflecting on what has changed in twelve months, providing some insight into our current endeavours and giving a little insight into what we have planned next.A Year of ProgressWhen we set up Mindmoss, Defiled West was already over one year into development, following on from its humble beginnings as an entry to the NSE Game Jam 2024. At this time, the demo was still not yet released. Our first town, Stickstead, was still largely unfinished and the concept of adding additional towns was still very much... conceptual. Since then, development has sped up tremendously. Stickstead is now complete and fully playable in the Defiled West Demo, and its successive towns of Wraithwood, the Screaming Caves and Banshee's Bluff are all in very good shape, with a new town on the horizon... Here we've compiled a little carousel of before and after images to show how the game has evolved!As we implement more and more of the underlying game mechanics, the speed at which we can create new towns and levels only accelerates. (Limited only by the lengthy amount of time it takes to create all of our new art and music!) We're so excited to continue on this journey and bring even more fun and variation to the game in the coming months. Upcoming Demo Updates!As the game grows behind the scenes, bug fixes, optimisations and sometimes even new features make their way into our demo, currently live on Steam. We want to make sure that the demo is continuously updated so that players can always experience the first section of the game to its fullest. Recently, we've made a few feature changes that will soon be making their way to the demo - here's a little more about them...The WHERE Wagon?!We've been hard at work overhauling the weapon...Read full article on Community Announcements (marshs)Patch NotesOfficial
Defiled West Demo - Patch Six!
This is a significantly smaller update than our last, but we have found a bug that could not go unaddressed. Read our latest Developer Diary to see what we've been up to! ImprovementsThe number of weapon slots on the weapon wagon has almost doubled, allowing room for the many more weapons you will discover along your journey!Bug FixesFixed an issue that prevented players from swapping weapons during the soul scale tutorial, rendering those holding melee weapons stuck indefinitely.Fixed a rare issue where you would not be given enough spectral essence to perform the spectral pulse ability in the soul scale tutorial.Fixed an issue that caused the Life Reaper to break the lighting in the Ethereal Rift.Fixed an issue that would cause the locked door key icon in Riftwood Ranch to reappear on revisit. Thanks for reading! Please visit our new feedback form here to help us improve the demo! All the best - The Mindmoss TeamRead full article on Community Announcements (marshs)AnnouncementsOfficial
Developer Diary #3
IntroHey again, It's time to go over some content we've been working on! (and some thoughts about balancing...)It's been a little bit since we released the latest patch for the Demo build. We're committed to refreshing the demo where possible, keeping it as an accurate game representation. However, less content will be added going forward. We've finished adding animations and UI changes now - our focus is mostly on upcoming areas, weapons, gadgets and fun. The Screaming CavesThis town is functionally complete, which is very exciting for us. We've been working on it for a couple of months now and we're very proud of the outcome. Animations and sound effects are still on the to-do list, but the new enemies such as the Petrighoul, Oxidised Miner, Cave Ganderer and Petrified Pincer are all complete!Of course, being a major town, all the usual staples are included. A new set of bounties, a new minigame and a couple of hidden secrets.Sonic WeaponsWell, not weapons exactly... Fighting through the caves has taught you something quite valuable. Ghostly enemies are vulnerable to Sonic emission. Defeat the Horseman of Famine, Psyanite, to receive your first Screeching Grenade. This is a gadget which can break Resonant Objects and allow passage into Banshee's Bluff. We'll show off more of the caves at a later date as we don't want to spoil everything. One thing is for sure - this town is full of surprises!Up Next, Banshee's BluffSet in the Icy hours of the cliffside morning, Banshee's Bluff is a minor town similar to Wraithwood. What it lacks in cornfields + warmth, it gains in beauty and exploratory value. Banshee's Bluff is a former mining town and the design reflects that. Buildings aren't quite as fancy as Stickstead, they're built for purpose. However the Gorehouse Saloon is perhaps the finest source of soup for miles around. You'll have to fight your way past the Encroacher first. Visuals for this town have only just started, so we cant share the soul-fuelled steam bridge...Read full article on Community Announcements (Tbage)
