Generally speaking, the Hack and Slash genre incorporates a wide variety of games, from Metroidvania titles like Dead Cells, to FromSoftware's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. The consensus is that to be considered a part of this genre, the game must feature intense melee fighting, usually against hordes of opponents, and a combat system that is as rewarding as it is challenging. Perhaps unsurprisingly, developer Soleil's upcoming action game Wanted: Dead seems to fit the bill perfectly. Soleil is comprised of several ex-Team Ninja staff who assisted with the development of the Ninja Gaiden series, and in many ways, Wanted: Dead could be considered a spiritual successor to ninja Ryu Hayabusa's hard-hitting adventures, as it looks to breathe new life into the genre.
Wanted: Dead tells the story of Lieutenant Hannah Stone, who leads a crack team of talented cops known as the Zombie Unit. Together, they uncover a huge corporate conspiracy and must battle countless dangerous mercenaries along the way. The game promises to combine fast-paced gunplay with fluid melee mechanics in a cyberpunk setting, in order to deliver a high-quality experience for fans of the genre.
Wanted: Dead's Gameplay Will be Challenging and Innovative Enough to Revitalize the Genre
In the 2000s, Ninja Gaiden was considered to be one of the toughest Hack and Slash games on the market. The unforgiving approach to combat was divisive at a time when FromSoftware's brand of merciless gameplay was not yet in existence. Wanted: Dead is seemingly taking a similar approach, with every enemy in the game able to punish the player severely for any lack of concentration. The player must familiarize themselves with all the nuances of the combat system if they are to emerge victorious. As well as a diverse enemy variety, the game promises a plethora of fun, innovative boss encounters too, ensuring Hannah is never far from her next challenge.
The team behind Wanted: Dead has gone to great lengths to ensure that no two combat encounters are ever the same. Hannah's wide range of attacking options will ensure that the player is able to change their approach depending on the types of enemies they encounter, with each of them said to have different strengths and weaknesses. While finishing moves are nothing new to the genre, usually the same handful of these animations are used on repeat, and they tend to get old pretty quickly. Wanted: Dead's Hannah has over 50 unique finishers to use against enemies, taking over 100 hours of motion capture to record. The move Hannah uses will change depending on the environment, enemy type, and situation, ensuring players should rarely if ever get bored with seeing the same takedowns.
As tough as Hannah is, she won't be alone on her mission, with several other members of the Zombie Unit along for the ride as NPCs. Each of them has a slightly over-the-top personality, which seems to be a perfect fit with the game's tongue-in-cheek approach and not taking itself too seriously. While combat is obviously the game's focus, Hannah can take a break from cutting her enemies in half by immersing herself in a number of bizarre mini-games, including food-eating competitions and even karaoke (in what seems to be a nod to the popular Like a Dragon franchise).
Wanted: Dead is releasing right in the middle of a packed February schedule of new titles and will be competing with the likes of Hogwarts Legacy, which arrives just four days earlier, and Like a Dragon: Ishin!, releasing seven days later. However, among all its array of useable guns and melee weapons, nostalgia seems to be Wanted: Dead's weapon of choice. Tapping heavily into some of the best indie Hack and Slash games of the 2000s may just see this exciting action game become one of February's more memorable titles.
Wanted: Dead is set to release on February 14 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
