Soleil is the developer of the game Wanted: Dead. There are many people who were excited about the launch of this game as they are the same developers of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive. Many people absolutely adore the style and game mechanics of Ninja Gaiden.
Ninja Gaiden is such an amazing series that even now, they are expected to release a reboot of this game this year. So, looking at this, many people were really hyped about the release of this game when they heard that it is the same developer for the game Wanted: Dead. This game was published by 110 Industries SA. The style of the game was made in kind of takes the players back to the PS2 period.
- Release Date: 14th February 2023
- Available on: PlayStation, Xbox, PC
To play Wanted: Dead on PC, you can check out Steam or Epic Games to purchase this game. Epic Games does give more discounts, so you can make sure to check it out then. Do make sure that you go through the minimum requirements so that you can have a smooth experience without any hiccups.
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit operator)/Windows 11 (64-bit operator)
- Processor: Intel core I-5 2500k
- Memory: 8GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GTX 1060
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 50GB Available space
- Additional Note: DirectX feature level 11_1 is required.
As we can see that Wanted: Dead does not really require high-end specs for the game to run smoothly.
Wanted: Dead Storyline
You play Hannah Stones, who is an ex-military operative who has been arrested and kept in a confinement cell. She is given a negotiation offer to get out by the Warden of the prison. She believes that she is being hired for assassination, but instead, she is hired in Hong Kong on a strike team with a few other members who were given life sentences.
But before you get to play as her, the game shows you a clip. In the clip, we can see them talking about how Hong Kong reunited with China in the year of 1997. During this period, Dauer Synthetics was trying to develop a workforce that was almost human-like.
In August 2022, Dauer Synthetics filed for bankruptcy. This bankruptcy had threatened to expose many of their dirty secrets about synthetic ones, which they had been working on. Now, this is where Hannah Stones comes into play.
The team consists of Doc, Herzog, Cortez, and the team leader herself, Hannah. These four make the Zombie Squad. Three of them, besides Hannah, are criminals and have gotten life imprisonment. Now, a little about them one by one. Doc is a little weird and acts a bit strange.
For some reason, Cortez communicates in sign language, and then there is Herzog and who is more of the pervert. This is all we know about the characters and nothing else. Hannah does get some random anime flashbacks which are very weird.
We can also see that each character has its own set of distinct abilities. Basically, in this game, we can see the life of the Zombie Squad for a week, trying to uncover the deepest secrets of Dauer Synthetics.
Wanted: Dead Gameplay
The game has many similarities to Ninja Gaiden, and it is labeled as “shooter/slashed,” the very reason being the fact that you get a katana and a gun. Many have noticed that the gun does not come that much use as most of the bullets are absorbed by the enemies. So, we switch to the katana, but facing quite a few enemies at once can be overwhelming most of the time.
The mechanics of the game are not that hard, but it just takes some time to get used to it. But like many other games, we do get a skill tree which helps us to get new abilities, and kind of helps us to fight different kinds of enemies.
When you are fighting enemies, you get three health bars. The Doc does help you patch up when you are running low on health. The fighting mechanism can be very satisfying only and only if you can match the timings.
In this monotonous game of killing your enemies, you do find a series of mini-games. The first one is Target Practice. You can enter this mini-game by entering the third floor of the Police Headquarters. There are two modes in this Score Attack and Time Attack. You can do either.
Next up, there is Crane Game. To play this, you must visit the fourth floor of the Police Headquarters and go next to the cafeteria. There are two cranes, the Green Crane, which has a mixture of figurines and capsules, and the other Blue Crane, which only has figurines.
The third mini-game is eating Ramen. You can play this by entering the fourth floor of Police Headquarters and entering the lounge area. You will have to press a few buttons displayed in a sequence to get to the Golden Bowl of Ramen. If you do it successfully, you will get some SP.
The next mini-game that we can see is Karaoke. You can play this by entering the fourth floor of the Police Headquarters and then going to the lounge area. Just like in the Ramen mini-game, you are supposed to hit the button it is showing in the shown sequence.
The song that is played here is 99 Luftballoons by Nena. Completing this gives you a badge but doesn’t give anything else. Last but not least on the list is Space Runaway. This is based on a retro-style game made by the same developers.
All of us have played this at least at some point in our lives. In this, you play as a spaceship and shoot all the obstacles. To play this, you have to get to the fourth floor of the Police Headquarters and enter the lounge area. Completing this does not give any SP but gives trophies. While playing this game, you will see there are basically four types of enemies that you will face throughout the game.
There are going to be synthetic workers who were made by Dauer Synthetics, mercenaries who were hired by them, crime families, and last but not least elite private military. To survive and defeat all the enemies, you must always keep moving. Always make sure to have a strategy that you can rely on when facing many enemies at once.
Honest Review
There are many Ninja Gaiden fans and Dead or Alive fans who have been waiting for this game, but this ain’t it, chief. Sure, it does show some sort of resemblance to Ninja Gaiden, but it has its differences too. There is no consistency as such, either. The first level lasts for a very long time, but the other levels do not so much.
This game has eight hours of gameplay, but within the second hour of the game, it starts feeling repetitive. The story does not make much sense. The story also feels like there is some sort of influence from the movie Suicide Squad. The Zombie squad that was mentioned before they don’t seem to have any sort of chemistry. For most of the parts, it felt like the voice actors were not aware of what they were saying.
There are no details about the characters that we are playing except for some anime flashbacks for Hannah Stone, and neither are there any details about the other characters, such as Doc, Herzog, and Cortez. We do find some case files, but there are useless details that do not give any backstory about any of the characters.
Out of all the side quests that are there, a few reward you with SP, but the others don’t reward you anything, kind of being a time waste, and neither does it contribute anything to the story. The game has a skill tree, but even with the full upgrade, it does not feel much of a difference, and the ones that do should be given by default to defeat the advanced enemies.
Our Verdict
Overall, the game has decent animations, but many players have reported the game crashing almost every time they tried playing it, so do be aware of that. It does bring back somewhat of the PS2 era. It sure does have a few positives, but it is hard to look at those when there are so many things not okay about it.
Our Rating: ⭐ (2/5).
Also read: Best Games That Are Based On Anime – Gaming Recommendations.
