Wanted: Dead – The Sleeper Hit of the Year?

Here at Finger Guns we’ve been keeping a very close eye on Wanted: Dead ever since it was first announced. We’re getting quite the storied history with it (we’ve even been quoted in a trailer) and now we’re back, well, because so is the game! IGN’s Summer of Gaming was home to a new trailer, and for a game that we already thought was frenetic, insane and packed with more executions than Mortal Kombat, they’ve actually managed to not only up the ante but make Wanted: Dead look like more than the sum of its B-movie parts. To say I was blown away by the trailer is a massive understatement.

Wanted: Dead has gone from a pretty cool-looking but daft Ninja Gaiden style hack N slash, to something that packs an interesting and eclectic story full of bizarre and curious characters. There’s far more here than was evident in the first trailers. And we already thought it looked awesome. It’s now shaping up to be something even greater. Feast your eyes on that trailer. You’ve got Metal Gear Solid in there, Ghost in the Shell influences, Ninja Gaiden, gun kata, John Wick, Katanas, Far Cry level villains and much more. Sure it still looks bonkers, but suddenly we’ve been given the scope and vision behind a game that so far we’d only scraped the surface on. It’s ambitious and far more so than I could have hoped when it was first shown. It’s showing style and flair, sensibilities beyond gaming into cinema and pop culture. I mean, that trailer has some drop-dead gorgeous anime cutscenes that look straight out of Tarantino’s Kill Bill backstory for GoGo Yubari.

That’s the level we’ve suddenly jumped to. It now looks comparable to stuff that Kojima’s worked on. You can’t watch that trailer and not see Metal Gear bosses, Kojima’s eye for shots and cinematography, Death Stranding, Quiet and much more. It’s a love of B-movies and Grindhouse in a cyberpunk world. It’s Metal Gear, by way of Blade Runner and Tarantino. If Kojima and Tarantino collaborated on a game, it might look something like this.

And to cap it all off the trailer is a masterclass. Pumping cyberpunk music, flashing visuals, fourth-wall-breaking cookery clips and newsreel. The gameplay itself looks like the most fun we’re going to have all year. Third-person gun kata and katana action, on a level I’ve never seen. Mad hordes of enemies, executions, and just that visceral sense of mayhem. I don’t think I could be more psyched for a game this year.

So you can keep your Last of Us remakes and your will-they-won’t-they release God Of War this year. I’ll be playing Wanted: Dead instead anyway.

Wanted: Dead is coming to current and last-gen consoles and PC – for the moment the release date is Q4 2022, but look out for more news when we can share a final release date.

Plus check out the previous trailer if you need any more convincing to stick this on your most anticipated list.

Source: YouTube