Have a ball in the Wild West.
Written by Jason Venter
Published Apr. 24, 2024
Exit Plan Games has announced plans to provide a massive expansion for Bang-On Balls: Chronicles, its open world exploration game. The new content is expected to arrive on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC platforms on May 10, with a Switch update to follow.
The new update takes players to the Wild West, where they can explore five new regions: Mexico, Saloon City, Oil Fields, Beaver Town, and the Gold Mines. Those regions in turn have sub-regions, which sounds like a whole lot of content for the bargain-basement price of free, free, free.
Players will ride horses, rail carts, and even rob trains. Canoes will let them cross rivers as they collect more than 80 new items and customize characters with appropriate (or inappropriate) gear such as lassos, revolvers, shotguns, a tomahawk, bows and arrows, and more. There will even be explosive TNT, to say nothing of four new bosses and four additional mini-bosses.
“Bang-On Balls: Chronicles was always conceived of as a digital toybox that offers a robust, playful experience that hearkens back to our favorite childhood pastimes and themes. Mario, LEGOs, pirates, all stirred our imaginations growing up, so we thought what better theme to add to our treasure trove of toys than the Wild West?’” said Damien Monnier, Co-Founder and Design Director at Exit Plan Games. “It’s a classic genre that’s ripe with silly, sandbox potential - especially as you can play with up to three friends in 4-player co-op. This expansion is absolutely massive too, adding added value to both returning players and newcomers alike!”
The base game already provides a destructible open-world sandbox adventure featuring combat, item collecting, platforming, and (it seems) irreverent humor. On PC, it left Early Access in October of last year, and carries a high average score on Metacritic that suggests you're in for a good time if you give the game a chance… even before the Wild West content hits.
Exit Plan Games is comprised of talent responsible for work on past games you might have played, including The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Motorstorm, and Bulletstorm. Its team currently consists of 16 developers, with an average of nearly 10 years of experience between them. From the sound of things, they're off to a great start.
