Weird West: Definitive Edition

UPDATE: We're now post patch and this guide seems to be working for most people. If you're still having trouble, please read through comments - it seems he is not necessarily guaranteed to be in Grackle.




This chievo is currently broken and should be fixed on patch 1.01 released on 11th of April (date may change).

These are the requirements for getting Joe to poker pool:
- Pigmen are sentient (you freed their souls) at end of Ch2
- You cured Pigman Joe Rhyming Curse in Ch2
- You are in Journey 3 4 or 5

The problem is that if you cure Joe, he becomes a recruitable character and if you recruit him, he's gonna stay that way and he will not play poker. If you're in Ch3 or later and he's still in Joe's place as a recruitable character, you can't do this achievement.

The way it worked for me is the following:
Ch2: Cure Joe BUT DON'T RECRUIT HIM and go burn the roots and finish Ruth, returning all the souls back to pigman. He may appear there as friend-for-life, that's fine (just make sure he doesn't die, but he's a bigboi and can take care of himself)
Ch3: Right at the beginning, check map if Joe is recruitable at his place. If he is, this doesn't work for you and I am sorry. Otherwise finish off the prologue until the point where you're supposed to go to sleep and then head off to Grackle (go with Story difficulty cuz you're gonna run into several encounters). This guarantees poker spawn at Grackle and if Joe is in the pool (= not recruitable), he has 75% change of spawning in there. Once there, just steal some stuff and sell it so you have 50g, save the game and go play with Joe until you win. I honestly don't know what the win condition is. I lost all my money to him and still got the chievo. I guess it's enough to win one round.

Hope this helps!

I spent hours trying to find the best method for Pigman Joe to spawn in and play a Poker Game. After multiple replays of chapter two I managed to have him spawn in twice. Here are the perquisites you need to complete before Joe will start appearing in saloons:

Chapter 2 (Pigman):
1. Complete "Bard's Bargain" which is Joe's story quest, this is given to you after the Fighting Pit fight. This involves lifting Joe's curse by killing a wraith in a local mine. Once complete he'll become a friend for life.

2. Continue along the main story line, burning all three soul tree roots. Now you'll have to return to the Soul Tree. When interacting with the Soul Tree you'll be given two options. Make sure you give the Pigmen their souls back (the good option).

3. Make sure Joe hasn't died. Also don't worry if you've accidently recruited him to your posse! We'll fix this in Chapter 3 as the Protector.

Chapter 3 (Protector):
Complete the opening story quest until you can access the world map again. Now hover over Pigman Joe's Hideout:

a. If he's showing as a mercenary to hire, head over to his camp asap. Recruit him into your posse and then dismiss him. This should make him vanish from his Hideout and return into the world as an NPC.

b. If he's not showing as a mercenary then bingo, you don't need to do anything more!

I spent hours at this point trying to force Joe to spawn at one of the larger towns that have Saloons. Eventually I gave up and just started playing the game normally - checking the Saloons every time I passed them. Until eventually I saw Joe appear in "Quickbend" and then in "Grackle" on a second (different) perquisite test. Joe spawning is totally random and I don't believe he can be forced to appear. He simply becomes an additional poker player that can spawn. As long as you complete the tasks above he'll eventually appear, even if you had recruited and dismissed him from your posse!

Hi guys,

After an excruciating amount of testing I think I can confirm the following is the only mandatory thing necessary for Joe to appear - for him NOT to have been recruited + pigmen souls freed. However, I advocate not visiting his location at all to make sure that it works. (NOTE: I see other people have succeeded having dismissed him but I could not do it for the life of me!)

I have seen various guides elsewhere saying he must not be at his hideaway but the only way to check would be to visit it, wouldn't it? But no, stay away. My suggestion is to do this with Protector while you continue to ignore his location and still haven't visited him since finishing chapter 2. He will not have a + sign underneath until you visit and talk with him, but he may be restricted from leaving if you do visit the location. I have not tried to replicate the save load mechanic once I got him to appear as a player finally, but prior attempts AFTER visiting the location, even without talking, failed.

Then in order to trigger him to appear I suggest the following:

* travel in between Grackle and a settlement. i did it between galen's crossing and grackle.
* skip time in between (eg. sleeping camps), whatever you need to, but MAKE SURE to have a save or an autosave in the town BEFORE you get to Grackle again AND see ANYONE sitting down to play cards. i have noticed it is more likely for me to happen after a fresh load after booting the game but that may be pure circumstance.
* now that you know that there is going to be someone playing cards, just reload the save in the previous town and keep travelling to grackle until you get joe. who you play against changes every time you reenter but you are guaranteed to see someone play on that occasion. i think there is probably an internal timer/delay of some before they can reappear, so it is MUCH better to save/reload in the town before than travel in/out to sleep in camps or anything. that got me nowhere.
* using this you will eventually get joe to appear

tl;dr:
- release pig souls in chap2 + do not recruit him in chap2
- do not visit / ignore joe's hideaway in chap 3 until you get it
- establish a route between two locations (grackle and galen's crossing eg.) until you get SOMEONE to appear at the poker table
- make sure to have a save (preferably hard save) in the location before travelling to grackle
- if you see someone that is not joe, reload in the previous location
- took me 5 times to cycle through and get him once i did this bit of set up

This is among the silliest achievements ever with way too many conditions and random events. As mentioned before, definitely cure Joe of his curse, and free the pigmen's souls in ch. 2. In ch. 3 it's your call about whether Joe is recruitable or not. I went with a full posse after Boulder Mine before Galens Crossing, and I found him in Joe's Place, *not* recruitable, just talking about stuff. Just do that to make sure he's alive, unless he's appearing as recruitable at Joe's. Again, I tested on both recruitable and not, just so happened he *wasn't* recruitable when I found him.

START WITH AT LEAST A HUNDRED DOLLARS JN YOUR POCKET. I won with a $5 bet on my third hand, but you should be kinda familiar with the rules and the play and it shouldn't take more than 3-4 hands to win once. (If you have $100s--$1000s, just make $5 bets over and over and you'll win.)

Now here's the extremely time-intensive part (you might get lucky though):

1) Travel to a *place.* (a camp/town/hacienda/mine/etc, not wilderness) It really doesn't matter where, but 6+ hours from Grackle is probably better. Now AT that place, save the game, full save. Note the name.

2) Travel to Grackle, no stops. It doesn't matter whether you fight in encounters, so skip them.

3) Walk to the saloon. You can peek inside as you're coming up the street or walk in. All you're looking for is someone at the table. ANYONE.

4a) if the person is Joe, just step right up and play. This is where you need money for several hands. Right then. Don't show up like a chump with $10 in your pocket. Win *one* hand and achievement pops.
4b) If there's anyone else there. Load to the save you made in step 1. Continue with steps 1-4 until Joe's there and you get to play him.
4c) If there's nobody at the table (CHECK, THE CARD SYMBOL USUALLY ISN'T THERE) continue

5) Pick another place. If you started with Galens, go to
Stringer, Emilio's, doesn't matter, just keep it a ways away from Grackle. I ended up at Joe's place. Doubt you need to go that far but do what you need to do. Save at that location. Now continue 1-5 until you find him. Now this achievement sucks -- it might take you 10 minutes but it took me two hours. Good luck!