Wanted: Dead Reviews
If you’re not put off by its grave challenge that all too often feels unfair and its general rough-around-the-edges nature, you might have a good time with Wanted: Dead. Most, though, are likely to become disheartened and infuriated by it. It tries to do something new with the genre and we applaud it for that, but the execution isn’t quite there. We love its characters and its quirkiness, and even its mechanics, but they’re in a game that at the moment only sporadically feels fun to play. Hopefully Soleil can make some post-launch changes that point it further in the right direction.
Not your grandpa's Ninja Gaiden, for better or worse.
If you are up for a challenge Wanted: Dead can be a fun experience, but for those who don’t like dying or having to learn perfect timing, it can be rather frustrating. The game’s shift in graphics between mini-games, gameplay, and cutscenes can be a bit much for those looking for a uniform experience. Soleil Ltd. tries to make Wanted: Dead the experience that Ninja Gaiden was, but misses the mark. Combat can be fun if you don’t get frustrated at a challenge, otherwise, if you are looking to just experience the story, Neko-chan mode is the way to go.
Wanted: Dead is a great action game, it has flashy visuals, violent combat full of blood and dismemberment, and mostly it has a great interesting if unusual story, carried by interesting characters, external influences and sinister plot. The world is built in a cool, refreshing way and the moment-to-moment gameplay is engaging though sometimes simple. It promises something unique, and it delivers something not only unique but recommendable to fans of futuristic worlds and action games.
It's a piece that you'll enjoy after spending a few hours in the game. It's not a masterpiece, but definitely enjoyable.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Wanted: Dead is poorly executed and mini-games don't save it from mediocrity. Even action-games fans won't enjoy this much.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
A mediocre release in which conflicting elements don't add up to a fun game. Wanted: Dead doesn't hold up against other February releases.
Review in Russian | Read full review
What Wanted: Dead lacks the most is identity. It could be fun to some extent but in general, nothing is outstanding about it. Everything from shooting elements, gameplay, narrative, mini-games, and even voice acting falls between bad and mediocre and the final product just not worth 60 dollars.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Wanted: Dead is the love child of the creators of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, and you will definitely see the influence as you make your way through the story. You play detective Hanna Stone, the leader of Hong Kong’s Zombie Unit. This team is comprised of a group of misfits looking for a second chance and they are trying to uncover a corporate conspiracy. The story may not win any awards but we personally had a ton of fun with Wanted: Dead.
Wanted: Dead is a bloodthirsty romp with challenging gameplay, but it feels unduly harsh, and more frustrating than fun. Accompanied by an inconsistent narrative, poor presentation, and repetitive boss battles, it results in a mediocre experience overall.
Wanted: Dead is one of the worst games I've played in recent years. From Unbelievably poor AI to weak gunplay, Wanted: Dead is a complete disaster. If you value your money and your time, never ever play this game.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Wanted: Dead feels like a game made in 2006. It looks like a game from 2006, which is not a good thing. But at the same time, it plays like it's from 2006, which is great. It offers fun action gameplay, a decent challenge, some offbeat humor and doesn't take itself very seriously.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Wanted: Dead is a simple and straightforward yet challenging action game. The story is bad, there are few levels and the minigames are generally uninteresting. On the other hand, the gameplay is pretty good once you get the hang of it. If you don't care about the plot, overlook some technical problems and have the patience to learn the game, you might end up finding a good source of fun.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Wanted: Dead is certainly an experience. It's a weird game with occasional flashes of something great. It's difficult to recommend it solely based on that. It's disjointed, repetitive, and feels more like a collection of ideas stitched together into the rough shape of a game rather than anything cohesive. For a certain kind of gamer, this is going to be catnip, but for the average person, it's probably going to be too weird to work, and unfortunately, the gameplay isn't strong enough on its own merit to overcome that.
Wanted: Dead isn't as bad as the worst games to come out recently but sloppy game design and story-telling has let down what could have been a decent game to play.
Wanted: Dead reminds me of the PS2-era Onechanbara games but it's substantially less entertaining with its clunky gameplay and odd story, characters, and dialogue that I'm not quite sure if I should be laughing at or with.
The fact that it successfully revives the 2000's style of games, along with their problems, doesn't mean it deserves any kind of a pass. Wanted: Dead is aimed at a strictly specific audience and no one else. It doesn't even have impressive graphics to grab the attention of the rest of us, and the voice over is mediocre and irritatingly repetitive. The fact that, price-wise at least, it's being marketed as an AAA title can only be described as another joke by its creators.
Soleil is an up-and-coming studio that has been showing real promise in the mid-tier games space. A space that has gotten less and less attention this past decade. I think that they succeeded here more than they didn’t. I found myself continuing to come back and fight against the frame rate issues and the technical flaws. I like these characters, even if they are more shallow than they could be. I like the tone. Referencing Supa Hot Fire in 2023 and then having your war criminal antiheroes do karaoke or see who can eat the most ramen right before they lay waste to a government building or comfort a child who doesn’t seem to care that his parents just died in the next room is a crazy, weird, off-kilter, fun time. I even liked the combat: as cheap as it may be to get insta-killed by a random merc with a rocket launcher or a ninja flying out of nowhere. I liked the weird pace of it. I liked the puzzle of deciding how to get to the next checkpoint. I just really, really did not like having to fight through a non-stop onslaught of glitchy jittery frame rate issues or other small and large performance issues. I want to give this game at least a 7.5, and if it is ever patched further we might be able to reexamine it, but I can’t overlook something so glaring as countable frames and frequent crashes. I hope that Soleil Ltd. is able to bounce back and stick the landing on the next one because I like everything else I’ve played from them. And I know they’re capable of more.
I went into Wanted: Dead expecting to be an overpowered badass that ripped and tore through the opposition. It delivered for a fleeting moment, but quickly deteriorated...
Wanted Dead is a game that strives to please gamers of old. While I appreciate that, I think the biggest issue is that the gameplay loop is not polished enough. Something just feels off and overly clunky as well. Maybe I am just stupid and don’t understand the combat system, but I’ve had a healthy share of action titles in my years of gaming. I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly.