Wanted: Dead is a great game and I'll die on that hill, it's just super fun and entertaining above all else. I won't pretend the game isn't rough around the edges and the gameplay isn't pretty janky because it is for sure and there's no denying that, but many miss the fact that is also kinda the point considering the game is trying to emulate the sixth gen of consoles (in every way, even the ones most would consider outdated) where a lot of the games were exactly that, rough around the edges and janky though there's also so much creativity, charm and passion put into every inch of the product that it is simply impossible for me to not love it.

I will tolerate no slander or hate against the devs and especially the creative director and writer Sergei Kolobashkin because he never lied nor did he ever give false promises and the game is exactly what he said it would be. A passionate love letter to the sixth gen of consoles back when devs weren't afraid to do different and unique things and put out games that simply weren't going to be for everyone and wouldn't get critical praise, but they put these games out because they had a vision and they wanted to make it a reality. That's exactly what Wanted: Dead is for better or for worse because I have never played anything else quite like Wanted: Dead which reminds me heavily of many things like Deadly Premonition, Ninja Gaiden, Yakuza, Metal Gear Rising and basically anything with Suda51's name attached to it all rolled into one insane hybrid fever dream of a game.

Wanted: Dead is unapologetic about its influences down to its core and everything from the unique blend of gory, flashy melee hack and slash and 3rd person cover shooter combat (Which just gets better the more you play as you unlock more skills and abilities) to the over-the-top and slightly convoluted B-movie plot about a group of former war-criminal inmates who get a second chance at freedom and become an elite team of police officers that also happen to get tangled up into a corporate conspiracy complete with eccentric archetypal characters (Like the loose canon katana wielding badass cop who plays by her own rules Hannah Stone, the awkward pop culture referencing, cat loving genius gunsmith Viviane or the ramen connoisseur and ladies man Herzog) and influenced by Hong Kong action cinema and 80s/90s Cyberpunk anime like Ghost in the Shell or the purposefully amateurish voice acting done by the devs themselves, the awkwardly lip-synched cut-scenes, self-aware goofy dialogue, weird mini-games and especially the linear to a fault level design and punishing difficulty with checkpoints few and far between (I would go as far to say that your enjoyment of the game could hinge upon how good you are at action games with nuanced controls) was all deliberately added to further fully encapsulate that PS2 era charm in every way possible.

Wanted: Dead feels like a long-lost classic PS2 game in the best (and some of the worst) ways possible and while that isn't going to be for everyone, hell it won't even be for most people, but I personally adore it and respect the creator for sticking entirely to their creative vision and simply putting out a game for no other reason than it was something they were passionate about and wanted to release for the ones who will enjoy and truly "get" it and for the ones that do "get" it, you'll get an incredible retro throwback to a time when games weren't afraid to just be weird and fun.

P.S. I can already tell that much like games such as Deadly Premonition, NieR, God Hand, Killer7 or Killer is Dead this is the epitome of a truly misunderstood gem of a game that will be heralded as a cult classic 5 or 10 years from now, but for now it has already reached that status for me.

Pure unadulterated 6th gen zoomer filter

Wait, this was released just this year? How could this be?

In all seriousness though, I’m never trusting a journalist’s review ever again. I had interest in Wanted: Dead until I saw IGN’s 4/10 review calling it a bad game. I know not to trust these publications positive reviews, but usually when reviews are this low, there’s something very wrong. That’s not the case with Wanted: Dead.

Wanted: Dead is not only good, but it’s great; A beautiful seamless blend of cover shooting and hack n slash. The shooting is responsive and features great feedback. The melee combat is simple, yet engaging and challenging. Mixing these together could result in a mess, but the enemy variety, balancing and health system makes it harmonious.

Staying in cover blasting away results in running out of ammo and health. Much like Doom (2016) and Eternal, running away and hiding will get you killed. You heal from preforming the melee takedown animations and regular melee attacks. You can still use the cover shooting mechanics in an attempt to take out enemies at long range or thin out the horde, but the melee combat is what allows the player to regain health and build adrenalin. Adrenalin is basically your devil trigger or god hand, activating it shoots nearby enemies with your handgun leaving them open for a “glory kill”.

As for the melee combat itself, the only comparison I can make is Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Parry enemies’ basic strings and then use the handgun counter on the moves that flash red. It’s simple and it could have used a few more types of enemies. At least there are bosses that have unique strings and abilities.

My biggest complaint with Wanted: Dead is that it doesn’t evolve much. The game doesn’t change much past the first level. Sure, there’s new enemies and a skill tree that unlocks new moves, but the lack of any real level design, platforming, or puzzles makes it more paced like a beat ‘em up than a traditional 6th gen character action game like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden. Still, I didn’t find myself getting bored. It throws waves and waves of enemies at you with new combinations.

The checkpoints are stretched really far apart. It can be frustrating (especially a certain one of level 4) but overall I think it ties in well with the design they were going for. Wanted: Dead also has some jank but who cares? I don’t know why people get so upset about this. I glitched out of bounds twice, some of the animations froze during the glory kills, the chainsaw can miss right through enemies, a few times I couldn’t pickup a med kit, but if you’re gonna let that get in your way you’re not playing video games for the right reasons.

Wanted: Dead’s world is bursting with personality. There’s multiple goofy mini games and strange yet compelling voice acting.
Lieutenant Stone’s VA specifically is strange. Theres a few lines delivered poorly, but her unique tone makes it memorable. With all the extra side content I barely touched, I’m surprised how short the game was. It’s set up like a much longer game, complete with an HQ area and challenge arena, but it only lasted 7 hours for me. The story starts as a confusing mess without any structure, but eventually in the penultimate level, the twists and turns make sense of most of it without spelling it all out.

The devs of Wanted: Dead proclaimed it to be a “love letter to the 6th generation of games” and that’s absolutely what it is, warts and all. I cannot fathom someone playing this game and legitimately thinking it’s “bad”. It’s straightforward challenging fun. Get filtered.

8/10

There is an interesting dance lying at the heart of this game between the increased randomness on its ranged options and the consistent but limited fallback option that is the knife parry. I suppose this does create less predictable outcomes: I fire off three shots with no stagger, consider switching to a different weapon, end up forced into a situation where I have to parry, might miss the parry or be forced to reposition myself if my durability is too low. That's sort of interesting and a meaningfully different flavor from the original, even if I can't think of a scenario where I would necessarily prefer it to that game's more proactive decision-making and accommodating feedback.

It gets bizarre when you consider the inclusion of several bandaids to allow the player to make things more consistent: the laser sight as well as weapons with varying levels of stagger, bloom and target acquisition speed. Some of these are further contingent on a new currency primarily earned through optional side quests, which themselves include highlights such as "kill five rats in every area of the game" or "shoot eight medallions in every area of the game." This certainly makes loadout options more diverse, but at least for me it's self-defeating in that I will always pick loadout options that make the game more consistent (read: more immediately and intrinsically enjoyable) and possibly feel pushed into engaging with side content I'm not actually interested in. This gets away from the original's pick-up-and-play appeal where all loadout options are "normalized" to the point that I can pick literally any weapon and have a blast.

This new approach to combat is definitely at its best when you're getting cumstered from all sides in the early game: rather than constantly cutting your path through the crowd like in the original, you're often forced to find safe ways to back away from it and not lock yourself into a bad position. However, just like the original, level design gets more constricted once we reach the island, and whereas that gives the 2005 version a refreshing bit of momentum in that final stretch, the remake seems to run out of ideas here: it's been a minute since release but my memories of that portion are a blur of tunnels with maybe two or three guys coming at me where I'd stand in the opposite corner and just pick them off. The less accommodating mechanics feel ill-suited to these ultra-basic fights.

One of the original's best qualities is how it constantly reinterprets its core mechanics for interstitial moments connecting the larger combat arenas: the cable car sequence, the Garrador cage fight, riding on the back of the disposal truck with Ashley, the U3 boss, etc. The remake either excises these entirely or replaces them with much more limited set-pieces like the now on-rails mine cart segment or the El Gigante ramparts escape scene, which feels like a much more modern AAA (derogatory) way of introducing variety and fails to utilize most of the mechanics on offer. This probably warrants a more nuanced scenario analysis than what I can offer here, but it can't help but feel like a much same-ier, soupier game across its run, which is disappointing given how strong the remake starts with all its small but meaningful subversions in the village section.

Still cool to see one of the most important games in my life reimagined this way and has too much RE4 DNA to not be pretty fun in the end, but I don't expect it to have a similar staying power.