Wanted: Dead Mixes Sword-and-Gun Combat With Thin Missions

Wanted: Dead puts a former convict back behind bars after a life sentence, then sends her back out again to perform high-risk missions for the police. That premise sounds simple. It isn’t.

Trailer, via IGN.

Hannah Stone’s Missions

Hannah Stone is a cyborg who gets her life sentence reduced when she agrees to join an elite team that performs high-risk missions for the police. She’s the only playable character, and she moves through a dark and dangerous version of science-fiction Hong Kong where sharp skills matter more than guns alone.

The game combines hack-and-slash combat with third-person shooting. Players can build combos that mix a sword strike with a pistol shot, and the weapon list runs wide: guns, swords, and grenade launchers all sit side by side. Death sends you back to a checkpoint, not the start of the mission, which keeps the pace from dragging.

What Works Against It

The presentation is where Wanted: Dead stumbles. Some cutscenes are done in anime style, and there are quick-time events and rhythm-game elements built into the missions. These additions don’t always fit the core combat loop. They break the flow rather than add to it.

Customization exists too. Players can build out Stone via a skill tree as they progress through the story, letting her gain new abilities and grow sharper over time. That system is the clearest sign of ambition in the game, even if the rest of the package doesn’t always match it.

The level design is thin. Missions tend to repeat the same shapes and enemy types across each playthrough, which keeps the sense of danger from building the way the premise suggests it should.

Ranking the Parts

1. The sword-and-gun combo system — the best idea in the game, and it lands.
2. The checkpoint system — simple, effective, and easy to live with.
3. The anime-style cutscenes — a nice touch, but they don’t always earn their place.
4. The rhythm-game elements — a bold addition that rarely pays off.
5. The level design — thin, repetitive, and the weakest part of the package.

The game is ambitious in parts and uneven in others. The combat system holds together better than anything else around it, but the rest of the package — the presentation, the pacing, the world itself — never quite matches the promise of that core loop.

Wanted: Dead is a game that understands what it wants to do with its sword and its guns, and a game that struggles to build a world worthy of those tools. It’s worth playing for the fighting alone, even when the rest of it falls short.

cyborg · game review · hack-and-slash · third-person shooter · Wanted Dead