Wanted: Dead review: The most bullshit game of 2023

At the end of December, the creators of Wanna die published a 90-second trailer on YouTube. Without exaggeration, this is a masterpiece of video game maximalism.

As if they were stuffing every Christmas present into a single sock, the developers made the most of the short run time, piecing together animated cutscenes, a human cooking show Real close, slurping ramen to the rhythm, a classic inspired arcade shooter, karaoke, a crane game and a series of scenes that resemble an inspired third person action game from John Wick combines fencing with “gun fu.”

Every promotional trailer sells a pitch, and the best I can say, the pitch here is: What if you played every video game at the same time? Well, now I’ve played about half of it Wanna dieand I’m thrilled and horrified to say, that’s exactly what the trailer promised.

Wanna die is the debut game from developer Soleil and publisher 110 Industries, a pair consisting of the successful Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden developers. You play as Hannah Stone, a battle-ready killer with a knack for human fillets with the grace and efficiency of a master sushi chef.

Stone’s hobby of amputating legs is curious for a reason: Stone is a lieutenant for the “riot response” of the Hong Kong police force. So why do she and her crew – dubbed the Zombie Unit – carry only extremely dangerous weapons?

The story of Stone and her team opens with a gentleness (bordering on indifference). Tarantino style dinner scene. (The game shares Tarantino’s obsession with the history of popular culture, especially the history of cinema.) Just like in reservoir dog, chat groups. And chat. And chat. The longer the scene lasts, the more time I have to realize turn off everything feels: Why do all these Hong Kong officers have European accents? Why does Stone’s performance feel like it’s lifted from a completely different game — or maybe a movie by Neil Breen? What happens to Hideo Kojima-style extended montage that hints at some global corporate intrigue and why the team isn’t talking about that thing?

Image: Soleil/110 Industries via Polygon

But just like I’ve settled on this Jarmuschian cinematic ecstasy — brrrrrring – a phone rings. Professional criminals have taken over an office complex that happens to be located a few blocks away. At this point, I don’t think any of my questions matter, because the game ended up putting me in Stone’s grip and I was able to kill the bad guys with my sword and machine gun. .

But wait, okay, I’m sorry, I know I keep getting caught up in puzzles, but which weapon should I use: sword or gun? When I approach a barrier, the game automatically puts me in cover, implicitly suggesting that I should approach the level like Gears of War and a lot of other cover-based shooters. But the bullets are inaccurate and ineffective. So, naturally, I dashed in with my sword and was instantly sprayed with smoke, taking damage as I tried to rush to slice, dice and dodge and generally stay alive.

Finally, I found a rhythm. The secret isn’t to be a perfect assassin — it’s to never stop moving forward, even when you’re covered in a hazy mixture of your own and your enemies’ blood. I have some muscle memory at my disposal because this is how video games used to work. Large level. Lots of enemies. Repeated fighting. Limited savings points and old school health packs. Killing enemies earns XP, which can be used to unlock more powerful moves and weapons. Wash. Repeat.

Image: Soleil/110 Industries via Polygon

110 Industries website description Wanna die as a “love letter to the sixth generation of video game consoles”, including the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2 and the original Xbox. And if that’s what the developers set out to achieve, they’ve done it – too well, honestly. Going through what feels like an endless first level (of which I’ve unlocked almost a third Wanna dieof Steam), I make my way through environments that look both new and old.

Let me try to unpack that contradiction. On the one hand, the game makes significant use of modern hardware with graphics that at first glance evoke the big budget action games of the time. However, something is clearly off. The world is a series of giant corridors and cave offices; an eerie mix of museum spaces and industrial weapons design labs and other sets that can be pulled out of a video game bag.

That’s the problem: The environments look like the levels in a video game, but they seem to be pulled straight out of the box. 50 Cent: Blood in the Sand, Earth Defense Force, and Matt Hazard. These spaces hold a fun home mirror to life, making it comically larger, warp, and out of scale.

That first level lasts so long that I sometimes wonder if it covers the entire game. Except that I have a trailer to remind me of what’s coming: cartoons, mini-games, and live-action cooking shows. After killing dozens of enemies and beating tank bosses, Stone and her teammates were finally pardoned and returned to the police headquarters. And so jarring brrrrrring of the phone, I was immediately transported into a strange world of fun out-of-order things.

Image: Soleil/110 Industries via Polygon

The sheer boldness of the creative choices inside the police headquarters mesmerized me. How is this done? Why? For whom?

What do I tell you? Regarding the architecture of the building, does it look like a dollhouse is too big for its dolls? Or is the rhythm game slurping ramen set to a song like a MIDI file that repeats and flies non-stop until it abruptly ends in the middle of a loop? The way the screen loads between minigames is a reproduction of This reaction GIF starring Hannah and the Zombie Unit? Or how I’m 99% sure the only song played in headquarters is a cover of “I touch myself“? Why are flashbacks to Hannah’s life in the early 2000s animated in anime style? And about Hannah Stone: What’s up with the reality four song album seems to be “produced” by Wanna dieof the mysterious Dauer Industries, has an experimental music division?

The closest cultural comparison I could muster for Wanna die was the French New Wave of the 1960s, when a group of critics turned filmmakers deliberately disrupted cinema so it could become something new. Traditional structure, framing, camera operation, and all other rules of filmmaking have been questioned, mixed or completely dropped.

Wanna die definitely break things; that’s the less obvious intention.

Image: Soleil/110 Industries via Polygon

It probably goes without saying on this point, but: Wanna die It’s one of the messiest, most confusing, and most out-of-date games I’ve ever played. But I can’t get myself to say it’s bad. Or even that I don’t like my time with lots of weird twists and turns.

There is a branch of critical theory that believes that we must respond to art in its own right – consider the media in terms of what its creators aspire to do, not what you want. And damn hot do Wanna die benefit from such generous reading. This is the game the trailer promised: too many ideas crammed into too small a box. Just as movie enthusiasts love classic B-movies for the clash of big ideas and even greater limitations, there’s something incredibly admirable about the daring of this silly video game.

In other words: This game does everything poorly, but mostly because it tries to do everything. It’s a cartoon, a cooking show, a boy’s family-popular classic-palooza references, a scathing critique of the military-industrial complex, a meme graveyard, an ode to Tarantino, a Praise Suda51and a hit for bad taste.

I can’t recommend playing this video game, but I wouldn’t encourage you to look away. And so I ended up here, and all I really know for sure is: Thank goodness I don’t have to give points.

Wanna die Available now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The game has been evaluated on PC using a pre-release download code provided by 110 Industries. Vox Media has an affiliate partnership. These do not affect editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information on Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.