Wanted: Dead Is The Weirdest Game Of 2023 (Review)

Wanted: Dead is the weirdest game I've played all year. A third-person shooter/hack-and-slash hybrid from 110 Industries, it's a tough title to even describe. It's at once a cyberpunk tale about evil corporations and police states and a balls-to-the-wall goof-fest full of karaoke mini-games, dick jokes and ramen history lessons.

Split up into five main missions that see you taking on gauntlets of enemies in between punishing checkpoints, you take on the role of Hannah Stone, a convict who's swapped out serving a life sentence to pay her dues by joining an elite police squad.

Unfortunately, after a pretty slick opening cutscene that sets a foreboding tone for the dystopia fiction to come, Wanted: Dead makes a dreadful first impression. A short tutorial introduces players to the basic controls for shooting, slashing, parrying and dodging, but the first actual level - and in particular, the first combat encounter - gives little indication of how the game should actually be played.

That's because at first it's unclear what the developers are wanting you to do. Enemies are far away, so shooting seems the order of the day. But then ammo is limited and peeking out of cover is punished with high damage. Likewise, the vast space between enemies, lack of checkpoints and limited healing items doesn't seem to encourage being out in the open and taking on gun-wielding baddies with your sword. As a result, the opening sections are likely to leave you feeling frustrated and at odds with the mechanics - a roadblock that annoyed both me and WhatCulture Gaming's own Scott Tailford.

Pushing through the deaths though, you'll thankfully find a better rhythm eventually. Not a perfect rhythm mind you, because it turns out Wanted: Dead's level design is at odds with the positives of its combat. Still, you'll find that pushing enemies is the right move, buttering them up with gunfire before striking with finishing blows. Throw in investing into an easily-ignored upgrade tree that awards seemingly essential buffs to your offensive and defensive moves, and Wanted: Dead finally reveals its satisfying core combat system.

The weight of the melee action in particular is supremely rewarding as you slice into goons with gloriously gory feedback. Whacking off limbs and cleaving dudes in half delivers no shortage of spectacle, and the same can be said for finishing moves, which are executed when enemies are in a stunned state. These are the highlight of combat encounters by far, perfect pieces of punctuation during lengthy fights animated with precision and flair. Think John Wick's gun-kata executions and you're on the right track.

Unfortunately, while moments of genuine brilliance punctuate these fights, combat encounters are as much defined by the game's jank. Shooting feels fine but mostly barebones, purposefully adopting a now outdated cover-shooting system that - as mentioned - clashes with the thrill of hand-to-sword combat. Enemy AI is rudimentary at best, defined by its persistent attempts to rush you even if you're unloading a clip in an enemy's face. Finally, even playing on PS5 the performance wasn't impressive, dragging down gameplay that needed to feel more responsive.

While combat does have its charms - and was compelling enough for me to complete Wanted: Dead in virtually one sitting, a sucker as I was for those finishing executions - it's broken entirely by the atrocious check-pointing and unfair difficulty. At the time of writing, only 40% of players on PlayStation have the trophy for beating the first level, and it's easy to see why. Wanted: Dead feels designed to piss you off, to prod and poke at you with punishing enemy encounters until you give up.

The main issue is just how many enemies need to be defeated before progress can be banked. You have a limited amount of healing items and while you can sometimes find pick-ups off dead enemies, it's extremely rare. Hannah can go down in only a few hits as well, especially to mini-bosses or grenades that seemingly come out of nowhere. So, every checkpoint becomes a series of trial-and-error efforts, where you're punished for anything other than pitch-perfect play and planning. Juggling when to use special attacks, when to shoot vs when to slash and how to use the level design to your advantage, there isn't much room for on-the-fly improvisation.

Now, on paper, that may seem like it would make for compelling decision making. In practice, it's too punishing, as the game throws tough enemy after tough enemy your way that take ages to put down, while hitting you with stun-lock attacks that feel outright broken and gunfire that can be impossible to dodge. A death rarely feels like it was your fault, but rather that something went wrong entirely out of your control, which sucks out the desire to tackle a section one more time. This is especially true for boss fights, where it can be a roll of the dice as to whether you get a fair fight, or you're spammed with the same OP move.

Truthfully though, as a lover of hard games... I kind of came to appreciate just how overtly unfair Wanted: Dead is. At a certain point it seems to completely drop all pretence of balance, and there was a masochistic thrill in taking the game head-on in all of its bull**** glory. Oh, you want to throw three suped-up, palette-swapped enemies my way after I've just beaten the stage's mini-boss and have no life left?. Sure, come on. Here comes the pain.

Viewed through this lens, Wanted: Dead - amazingly - became a twisted, perverse challenge that was annoyingly satisfying to overcome. It certainly means it's not recommendable to everyone, but for action game fans that enjoy tough challenges and can accept one that's absolutely not playing fair, then there may be something here for you.

Wanted: Dead isn't exclusively high-octane action however, as in between missions you're free to explore Hannah and the squad's home base: a multi-story police station full of mini-games and NPCs to chat to. This is where the weirder - and admittedly alluring - elements of the world and story come into play. During this downtime you'll be treated to some of the more esoteric mechanics, such as a ramen-eating rhythm mini-game where you need to match the button inputs on screen while Hannah wolfs down bowl after bowl; or a similar mini-game that sees the character - out of nowhere - perform a rendition of 99 Luftballons on karaoke. Add in arcade cabinets and teddy pickers and you have plenty of distractions.

Games that try to be weird and culty so often have too much self-awareness to ever achieve that status, but Wanted: Dead's strange asides are crafted with enough sincerity for them to hit these endearing notes. Whether it's being thrown into a diner, context free, while Hannah orders the biggest breakfast you've ever seen, or being thrust into some genuinely lush anime-style backstory cutscenes, there's never a lack of oddities to try to untangle. Some are bad, some are good - but they're all certainly memorable, and award Wanted: Dead with a strong sense of personality lacking in so many other by-the-numbers AAA games.

As a result, Wanted: Dead can only be described as a charming mess of a game. Its most creative cutscenes are dragged down by bland level design and rote boss encounters, its stylish cutscene flourishes are marred by a story that's virtually incomprehensible on a first playthrough, while its spectacular-in-isolation combat is constantly warring with a checkpoint system that demands you play as cautiously and reserved as possible to overcome its challenges.

At times, I had more fun slicing people up than I did in Final Fantasy XVI. Other times, I worried Wanted: Dead was altering my brain chemistry in real time as I tried to piece together its totally bonkers plot. It's not a good game by a long stretch, but it is a weird one, and I don't regret my time spent with it.

Review copy provided by 110 Industries. Platform reviewed: PS5.