The very first scene of the game is Hannah being recruited from her jail cell to join an elite task force, which she responds to with the kind of blasé compliance you might expect from any classic action star. While it’s endearing and definitely sets the tone for the rest of the game, this is only scratching the surface of what Wanted: Dead actually is.

The game’s developers describe it as “a love letter to the sixth generation of consoles”, and that sentiment can be felt in every aspect of the game, in a good way. Wanted: Dead is wildly adventurous, deliberately goofy, and it takes risks by throwing a ton of different, often conflicting tones and gameplay distractions at you.

"Wanted: Dead is wildly adventurous, deliberately goofy, and it takes risks by throwing a ton of different, often conflicting tones and gameplay distractions at you."

Where most modern games might try to do this and fail, Wanted: Dead manages to somehow take its weirdness in stride, and it does this by embracing a bygone era of gaming. Despite being made for release in 2023, it feels more like the kind of game you would have played back in 2003, a time when developers were less concerned with making “perfect 10s” and long before live service games.

Soleil doesn’t appear to have set out with the intention of making either of those things. Instead, what they have created is a very weird, very fun action game that knows exactly what it is and isn’t ashamed. It has hilariously bad voice acting, occasionally off-putting character models (just take a look at Hannah’s massive-eyed dead stare), and dramatic tonal shifts that could give you whiplash. In the first hour of the game, it is possible to go from intense action, to a heartfelt scene of Hannah comforting a child at a crime scene, to an inexplicable anime cutscene. You’ll also be treated to live-action cutscenes out of nowhere later in the game.

So yeah, Wanted: Dead is kind of all over the place, but it doesn’t come across in a bad way. The game is so competently made that all of the weirdness feels intentional. But, let’s put the weirdness to the side for just a bit so we can talk about what makes Wanted: Dead work so well.

The core of the Wanted: Dead experience is its combat, which was designed by former Team Ninja devs who now work at Soleil. You can definitely feel their influence, because Wanted: Dead’s core gameplay is only a few steps removed from a Ninja Gaiden game. Players have access to a katana and a handgun for close-quarters melee, where they will block, parry, and dodge roll, zipping from enemy to enemy with quickness and skill that puts Ryu Hayabusa himself on notice.

"Where most modern games might try to do this and fail, Wanted: Dead manages to somehow take its weirdness in stride, and it does this by embracing a bygone era of gaming. Despite being made for release in 2023, it feels more like the kind of game you would have played back in 2003, a time when developers were less concerned with making “perfect 10s” and long before live service games."

But that’s not all there is in terms of combat. Hannah also has a primary assault rifle to use for cover-based shooting, and you can pick up an assortment of other weapons on-site, including SMGs, shotguns, grenade launchers, and more.

When the bullets start flying, Wanted: Dead really does feel like a Ninja Gaiden game with guns, and that’s a huge compliment. You can switch between shooting and slashing on the fly, but the relatively low supply of ammo along with the variety of enemies you’ll have for each encounter means you’ll find yourself getting your hands dirty with the katana more often than not.

Thankfully, melee combat is as satisfying as you would expect from Team Ninja. You won’t be able to get by just mashing the attack button, and the combat system is designed so that you won’t want to. You can block enemy attacks and hide behind walls, but getting up close and personal to parry a combo successfully (or do enough damage) will open up your attacker to one of Wanted: Dead’s more than 50 different takedown animations.

Sure, limbs will fly off and blood will spatter during regular combat, but the ultra-violent, ultra-stylish takedowns feel like the real reward. Hannah becomes John Wick as she throws, shoots, and slices opponents up in numerous ways, even occasionally whipping out some Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to tackle enemies to the ground and take them out point-blank. It’s awesome.

"Hannah becomes John Wick as she throws, shoots, and slices opponents up in numerous ways, even occasionally whipping out some Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to tackle enemies to the ground and take them out point-blank. It’s awesome."

Even better, the combat experience improves over time. The range of maneuvers and combat options available to you increase as you unlock skills on the three different skill trees: offense, defense, and utility. By the time you’ve unlocked every last one of those skills, Wanted: Dead basically feels like a completely different game. You’ll go from a limited set of moves to an unstoppable force, light-stepping around the battlefield and calling in your squad mates as strikers to weaken enemies for you.

The progression is awesome and gratifying, but you’ll need every last one of those skills. Outside of the tough-as-nails boss encounters, the grunt enemies and their attack patterns change from mission to mission, and you have to adjust your approach to combat each time. Finding the key to accessing those takedowns while you zip and roll around, take cover, and shoot at enemies is enough to carry the entire game, but that’s not all you’ll do in Wanted: Dead.

To complement the perplexing narratives and characters, you’ll also be presented with a host of different things to do. This ranges from karaoke with your co-workers to crane games, retro arcade games, and more. It’s not quite Yakuza in terms of side activities, but there are definitely enough to keep you busy outside of normal missions.

The action-packed missions and delightful diversions are interspersed with cutscenes that can be in-engine, animated, or live-action. Funny enough, it’s the anime-style cutscenes that give the game its limited serious moments. The animation is high-quality and well-directed, and they serve as a welcome grounding for the game’s narrative elements. The in-engine and live-action cutscenes actually end up feeling sillier and more cartoony by comparison thanks to the over-the-top characters and some janky animations.

"The action-packed missions and delightful diversions are interspersed with cutscenes that can be in-engine, animated, or live-action. Funny enough, it’s the anime-style cutscenes that give the game its limited serious moments."

There are times when a strange, drawn-out, in-engine cutscene will play (there are plenty of those), and you might question if it was supposed to be that weird, or if it just didn’t land how the developer intended. Then the meme-parodying loading screen appears, and you realize, “oh yeah, that was intentional.”

This is what makes Wanted: Dead stand out from its contemporaries. It’s the intentional silliness and jank that hearkens back to the PS2 era, perfectly encapsulating the games that defined the childhoods of an entire generation. Those kids are all grown up now, and the way the industry is heading often looks like it will alienate us. So, it’s fantastic to have a game that doesn’t want to squeeze every last penny out of you or try to be a 100+ hour experience. Wanted: Dead just wants to be weird and fun, and that’s exactly what it is.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.

As Hannah Stone, part of the Hong Kong police squad’s zombie unit, the plot plays out across a week. During that time, Hannah and her team battle criminals but also run afoul of powerful figures. Confrontations with Private Military Contractors, Synthetics, and more await, and the police don’t seem squeaky clean either.

For those who are only in it for the action, Wanted: Dead features dozens of stylish executions, weapon customization, and heaps of gore. It’s a homage to the sixth generation of consoles, complete with mini-games like the side-scrolling shoot ’em up Space Runaway. Head here for more details on the world and its characters, and here for information on its enemies.

The world of Wanted: Dead is a bleak one, with a global war having ended the concept of countries being superpowers all over the planet. Instead, the world is now run by private multinational corporations and banks, such as Dauer Synthetics, which basically runs the Hong Kong police as an arm of its own private security, and Manu Militari, which is supposed to be a rehabilitation center for convicted criminals.

The Zombie Unit features Cortez, Doc, Herzog, Vivienne, and the primary protagonist, Detective Stone. Each of the characters have their own unique quirks, which will likely come through throughout the campaign in Wanted: Dead.

A previous trailer for Wanted: Dead explained the game’s various enemies and boss fights. The game is slated to hit PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on February 14. For more details, check out 30 minutes of gameplay here.

The three-minutes long trailer talks about a variety of different enemies, from random people with construction equipment all the way to the bosses of major crime families. Players will need to constantly stay on the move to survive, and will have to constantly adapt their strategies to take on different waves of enemies.

When it comes to boss fights, Wanted: Dead will feature a good variety, like mechanized walking tanks with absurd amounts of firepower, a mercenary sniper with a cloaking device, and a health-regenerating sword fighter with incredible speed.

Wanted: Dead has previously used these trailers other aspects of the game, including the finishers, as well as the combat.

Wanted: Dead is coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on February 14.

According to the trailer, Wanted: Dead features over 50 different finishing moves, depending on the situation, environment, and enemies. Finishers include situational kills, environmental takedowns, and unique finishers for specific enemies.

Alongside being a stylish way to take out enemies, the finishers also serve an important gameplay mechanic—they allow players to heal in the midst of combat.

The trailer explains that all enemies in the game have invisible stamina bars, with melee enemies having more stamina than ranged enemies. Once their stamina is reduced to zero through attacks, enemies become staggered, opening them up for a finisher.

The trailer also shows off an ultimate attack. Unlocked quite early in the game, the ultimate attack allows players to stagger several enemies in an encounter, letting them pull of chain finishers to take out a room full of enemies.

Wanted: Dead is coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on February 14.

Wanted: Dead is out on February 14th for Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, PS5, and PC. Here are 13 things you should know before diving into its particular brand of hack-and-slash combat.

Story

Set in a futuristic, dystopian version of Hong Kong, players control Lt. Hannah Stone, part of the police’s elite Zombie Unit. The story follows a week in their lives as they fight mercenaries, PMCs and other foes while investigating a corporate conspiracy. While there’s plenty of shooting, slashing and blowing things up, the squad’s downtime and interactions are showcased in various ways.

Cyberpunk Setting

Despite how straightforward it sounds, Wanted: Dead is apparently pretty heavy on the story. Its version of Hong Kong features a wide variety of NPCs and bosses while the cyberpunk setting takes cues from anime like Cyber City Oedo 808 and Dominion Tank Police. Of course, like those anime, Wanted: Dead features some goofiness to go with all the lo-tech retro-futuristic mayhem.

Combat

Soleil comprises former Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden developers, so seeing Wanted: Dead embrace a more hack-and-slash-heavy gameplay loop isn’t surprising. It’s way more grounded, though – no grappling hooks, wall-running or double-jumping (at least not in the beginning, judging from the initial gameplay). Along with slicing enemies and dismembering them in a gory fashion, Hannah can also block attacks, parry, dash and perform counters.

Third-Person Shooting

However, what truly makes Wanted: Dead stand out from the developer’s previous efforts is the shooting. Along with equipping a handgun, Hannah can also use rifles, grenade launchers, light machine guns, shotguns and sub-machine guns as primary weapons. So if you want to attack an enemy, and then back off and pepper them with machine gun fire, go ahead. It’s probably not the best idea with multiple threats, but you can quickly fire handgun shots after melee strikes, and take cover.

But make no mistake – it’s recommended to mix melee and long-ranged weapons to succeed. Some bosses will mercilessly rush with melee weapons, and close-quarters combat is the only option. Knowing what to use and when is the key to success.

Melee Weapons

For as much variety as the guns seem to offer, there haven’t been many details on the melee weapons. Hannah’s katana has been heavily featured, but there was a quick shot of her using a sledgehammer for a finisher. The Xbox Achievements also indicate that players will wield a chainsaw, though whether this is a special weapon that runs out with use or an equippable time remains to be seen.

Weapon Customization

While you can pick up weapons and ammo from enemies, including secondary weapons that could impact your chances of survival, firearms are also customizable. For example, Stone’s Rifle, which Hannah has from the start, can have its sight, stock, magazine, and barrel modified in different ways, affecting the recoil, accuracy, magazine capacity, reload speed, and more.

The Taker sidearm is also customizable, with options to change out the rear sight, barrel, and grip to affect various stats. It’s important for parries and setting up different finishers while also serving as a backup when your primary and secondary weapons run out of ammo.

You can also modify guns with different skins like Dark Camo, Jungle Camo and more. How you unlock more skins remains to be seen, but it does add some nice flair to your arsenal.

Finishers

What would a hard-boiled cyberpunk story be without brutal combat and finishers? There are over 50 finishers available, from tackling an enemy and shooting them in the head to executing an armbar takedown and, well, shooting them in the head. There’s also plenty of chest stabbing and throat-slitting. In short, while the gore doesn’t go super over-the-top, it’s still pretty visceral.

Skills

Upon taking down enemies, Hannah will earn Skill Points, which function like experience points. These are spent on unlocking skills from three Skill Trees – Offense, Defense and Utility. Offense skills include Bullet Time, where pressing both analog sticks when the Adrenaline Gauge is full, will fire “powerful shots” at surrounding enemies. There’s also Dash Attack, where attacking while sprinting forward executes a flying knee, and Charge Attack which unleashes a stronger attack when charging the melee attack button. While Defense and Utility trees weren’t extensively detailed, an Extended Dodge and Grenades are some of their starting skills.

Mini-Games

When you’re not taking down criminals, there are some mini-games to help pass the time. These include a rhythm game, karaoke, a crane game and Space Runaway, a side-scrolling shmup. Space Runaway is the star, with seven levels, each with a boss, and unique chiptune music. It’s even available as a free standalone title until Wanted: Dead’s release.

System Requirements

PC players won’t encounter the heaviest system requirements but Wanted: Dead can be demanding in other ways. At a minimum, you’ll need an Intel Core i5 2500K with 8 GB RAM and a GeForce GTX 1060. The recommended requirements include an Intel Core i7 2700K, 16 GB RAM and an RTX 2060. PC-exclusive features have yet to be outlined; however, you’ll need 50 GB of space for installation.

HDR10 and 60 FPS Support on Xbox Series X/S

The resolution that the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 versions will target has yet to be confirmed. However, the Xbox Store listing at least confirms 60 frames per second support. HDR10 and Spatial Sound are also supported, which should provide increased immersion.

Playtime

Developer Soleil has worked on several releases with a wide range of playtimes. Regarding Wanted: Dead, Sergei Kolobashkin, founder and creative director of 110 Industries, told us it’s not a “short game by any means” but also “We made sure that it never drags through the story or combat.” The hours required to beat the story and collect everything weren’t specified. However, he assured that it would “take a few committed evening sessions to beat if you’re not rushing.”

No Multiplayer

In case there was any doubt from all the single-player footage and heavy story focus, there is no multiplayer, be it co-op or competitive PvP. Kolobashkin also said the team isn’t exploring any multiplayer for Wanted: Dead currently. This is fine, but those who think the combat looks sick and hoped for some kind of online support should take note.

Titled Vivienne’s Late Night Chow, the videos are meant to be a look into why the character Vivienne Niemantsverdriet—played by Stephanie Joosten—turned away from her past life of being an Olympic medalist and celebrity chef to the master gunsmith we see in Wanted: Dead.

The videos, meant to evoke the feeling of watching old VHS tapes, give us a look at how Niemantsverdriet transitioned from cooking fancy food to making things that explode. The video also gives us a great look at the setting and vibe of the upcoming game.

The last episode of the cooking series is set to be released on the same day as the game.

Wanted: Dead recently got a trailer that showed off some combat, weapon upgrades, and other various aspects of the gameplay. It will be coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

As Lt. Hannah Stone, Wanted: Dead throws long-range enemies and close-quarters battles at the player. You have a katana and handgun, and other weapons like rifles, grenade launchers, and submachine guns quickly become available. Enemies will drop ammo and secondary weapons that can also be equipped.

Just because you can take cover doesn’t mean you should stay in it. Sliding and charging at foes, using takedowns and finishers, and tossing grenades are all necessary to succeed. Along with upgrading weapons with different attachments, one can unlock new skills. There are three Skill Trees – Offense, Defense and Support – that provide skills like running attacks, support from teammates, and more.

Wanted: Dead is out on February 14th for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.

Many of you might have heard about Wanted: Dead, the latest game from developer Soleil. And this upcoming game certainly looks like it could be a great time, and if things go right – it just might be one of the biggest surprises of this year, and there are a few reasons as to why this is the case. Soleil is best known for its work on Valkyrie Elysium, but the team also contains developers with credits on Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive – and those influences are pretty evident in this upcoming release. Wanted: Dead looks like a natural evolution of the best parts of these games, and the team is utilizing those learnings and setting up a big stage for this ultimate project.

Much like its predecessors, Wanted: Dead has style oozing out from every aspect of the experience. The story is told through beautifully drawn anime sequences, and it revolves around a week in the life of Lt. Hannah Stone. She is a legendary cop with plenty of skills and wits about her, and rightfully belongs to an elite police squad that has been tasked with uncovering a larger conspiracy in the cyberpunk version of Hong Kong. Sure, it’s simplistic – but simple doesn’t necessarily mean bad so we are confident about this tale being an entertaining ride.

And coming over to gameplay, Wanted: Dead looks absolutely gorgeous with slick action pervading every moment of the combat proceedings. True to her descriptions, Lt. Hannah Stone is a brave warrior – and can easily plow through hordes of mercenaries and synths with relative ease. But that power fantasy doesn’t come cheap, and much like Ninja Gaiden – you will need to understand the many nuances of the game and then use those learnings to decimate your enemies.

Wanted: Dead gracefully shifts from a third-person shooter to a melee-based brawler to a hybrid seamlessly. One moment you might be mauling behind a piece of cover, and taking shots at the enemy from afar, and the next you will be stabbing a sword into your enemy’s internals. But regardless of whatever you do, the combat is absolutely vicious – with one of the biggest highlights being the brutal finishers. The developer claims that Wanted: Dead will have over 50 unique finisher moves, which will take into account enemy type and position among other things.

The trailer showcases our player character dancing around huge arenas as she swirls and slashes her swords, chugs grenades, and hops from cover to cover to clear out enemy ambushes – and it all has a really good sense of flow like you would expect from the developer behind Ninja Gaiden. You can spot plenty of neat design tricks that really elevate the playing experience.

For instance, see how the action purposefully jitters for a split second after a successful hit to simulate a sense of impact, and how the action goes into slow motion as you execute brutalist finishers upon your foes. Plenty of screams and direction calls from enemies litter the battlefield as you do the killing – and you can find many more similar blemishes that all add up for a compelling experience.

And then, we should also talk about the writing which also imparts a sense of personality to the experience. You see, the characters in Wanted: Dead seem pretty distinct from one another, and they are charismatic, unlike the super serious mercenaries that are commonplace in such a game. The trailer showcases how the Zombie force consists of a bad-mouthed mercenary, a mute brute, and a serious medic apart from our player character herself. Perfect combination, if you ask me.

Sure, you could write them off as caricatures – but it seems that the developers know about the flawed nature of such simplistic characters and stories and they have the intention to take that know-how and leverage that stereotype to create hilarious situations for the entirety of the experience. In that regard, Wanted: Dead really reminds us of how a game like WET or Saints Row tried to present a story – though both games did fumble with the execution.

And that silly comedy extends over to the gameplay as well, and the trailer showcases the various kinds of minigames that we can expect to partake in during the course of this adventure. We saw a 16-bit bullet hell shooter, a dancing mini-game, and even one of those mini-crane game machines where you have to claw out the reward that you want. I don’t know about you, but a group of top brass mercenaries getting involved in such distractions, more so on an active high-stakes mission, certainly crackles me up – and hopefully, the final release will feature more of such eccentricities.

As you run through levels and cross narrative milestones, Wanted: Dead will dole out new abilities to players on a timely basis. There’s a skill tree that unlocks new abilities that will make your character stronger. And of course, you will also get a sizable assortment of weapons to help you in your adventure ranging from shotguns to SMGs to grenade launchers. Different enemy types will have different weaknesses and strengths, and knowing what to use against who will prove to be of paramount importance in this game.

We could talk about the many impressive aspects of Wanted: Dead for a lot longer, but the biggest drawing factor in the case of this game’s appeal is nostalgia. While it’s not certainly ripping off any one popular franchise from the past, its linear action-packed gameplay does bring back several memories of playing similar games back in the heydays of AA experiences during the sixth and early-seventh console generation. But as game development costs grew and gargantuan open worlds and cutting-edge graphics became standardized, the AA industry failed to keep up. But now it’s getting back up from the slumps, and the last couple of years have given us many wonderful experiences such as the likes of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice which showcase the sheer potential in such middle-market games.

So, players who grew up with such AA games are surely going to be reminded of those glory days with Wanted: Dead – and since the developers know about this, the campy voice acting and stupendous action are conscious decisions on their part to help invoke more feelings of nostalgia with this throwback adventure. We saw how Stray, a rather simple game, managed to win so many hearts with its brilliant execution and nostalgic puzzle-based gameplay last year. So it’s entirely possible that Wanted: Dead also finds itself falling in that bracket as well, and if the final release ends up delivering this well-earned power fantasy that the trailers have been setting up – Soleil’s latest might just be one of the dark horses of the year.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Set to be a loveletter to games from 6th-generation consoles like the PS2, GameCube and Xbox, the action game revolves around a police squad uncovering a corporate conspiracy.

The primary focus of the trailer is to show off Wanted: Dead‘s hybrid hack-and-slash/shooter gameplay. The trailer shows off a bit of the game’s skill tree, with a developer noting that players will have to unlcok the entire tree to take full advantage of the game’s combat system.

Originally announced last year, the development team behind Wanted: Dead features developers who have previously worked on Ninja Gaiden.

Wanted: Dead is set for release on February 14, and will be coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.