Madcap Action Game Wanted: Dead Gets an Update Almost One Year After Release

I made the grave mistake of picking this up thinking it'd be a janky, yet fun little AA oddity. Turned out to be one of the worst games I played last year. No amount of belated updates will make the gameplay in this remotely enjoyable.

Yeah, I was really interested in this until I heard how bad it was. Maybe these updates will finally make it worth a look?

@JB_Whiting well, you could pick Gollum and Kong games and write an article about the worst games of 2023

Cheers to them for finally fixing the bugged trophy, hopefully the platinum is possible now lol. Might give it a shot sometime, looks like dumb fun

@JB_Whiting Similar boat here. I had been keeping an eye on this as I also thought it looked like a perfect "seven out of ten" from the PS2 era. I wouldn't call it the worst game, but it's janky and frustrating for all the wrong reasons.

I expected an enjoyable action romp with dated graphics and questionable writing, but it's not fun, unfair and really punishing. It's a throwback that focused on the wrong stuff.

Oh, and I think the game would need some fundamental gameplay changes to be fun. Bug fixes and unattainable trophies are this game's last problems.

@RudeAnimat0r @JB_Whiting It's a shame to see y'all did not enjoy it. I know it was a turn off for a lot of people. And I agree it's definitely jank of the PS2 era, but once I figured out what it was wanting me to do and how to make combat flow, I had a blast. I think the Youtuber Electric Underground did a nice take on why it did not click for most people (including him) until he approached it differently than we do most mainstream games now.

Oddly enough I have been waiting for this update for a year, because I knew it was coming, and knew the one trophy was questionably impossible to obtain, so I may dive back in!

@MrSensical I loved it. You have to learn how to play it. It has an arguably bad on boarding system for how combat works, but once you treat it like a fighting game and not an action game (dodges, cancels, combos, etc) it makes more sense (which I know is in complete contradiction to the genre of the game).

I thought the studio was doing an overhaul on the game? Why did it take a year for this update XD

Game was absolutely terrible lol

Seeing as Devils Third never got one thought the same would be the same here. Same with many 1.0 versions of games. Seeing as a I like hack n slashes, I like PS2 era design (especially as PS3+ so many AAA formuliac refinements to games are just boring yeah there is a reason I prefer experimental PS1/2 land thanks from many games never heard of and hits, mostly those never heard of because they have mechanics worth experiencing and are fresh still/yet untouched but still great, don't care for marketing just researching myself).

The game is fine, janky yes but I like it. The chainsaw was awkward to use at times so glad a focus on that. The other changes seem fair. I might restart on easy I think just encase even though I usually play on Normal. Ninja Gaiden 2 I just suck at the 2nd level boss but Wanted Dead isn't that hard.

I'll welcome an update and these fixes seem fair I don't remember much crashing but it wouldn't surprise me either.

Seeing as 2023 was kind of disappointing among games I wanted and mostly cared for retro games more yeah Wanted Dead at least delivered in a way for me. Compared to some let down AAA and some Indies were hit and miss.

No not joking. I have gotten stuck on the 2nd boss but either way while the skills and more aren't what I care for of gameplay focus, a hack n slash shooter is good enough for me. I haven't played Bright Memory Infinite either which does some cool stuff.

Soleil updated Valkyrie Elysium quite a bit and did work on Wanted Dead (their logo is on the box) but whether they supported it much no idea.

So Madcap putting some fixes is nice to see.

I played and completed this the OG way, so I am kinda proud of myself 😂, but in all seriousness I enjoyed it even it was janky as hell! Sometimes very unfair, but it was a fun playthrough!

@JB_Whiting I actually enjoyed it there was some odd crazy difficulty spikes though

I can definitely see why many people were turned off by this but I really like this game. It just requires your time to really learn and get a handle on the commbat. It gave me a similar feel that I had when I first played Ninja gaiden black

@CharlieChooChoo Yup. FYI the studio behind it, Soleil, is made up of ex Team ninja devs and one of the directors of Black directed this game as well. Dont be fooled like many other people tho. This game is its own thing. It doesnt play like ninja gaiden at all so dont expect fast paced combos and izuna drops and such. It just has a similar feel imo. Especially with how difficult and aggressive the enemies can be.