Review: Necromunda: Hired Gun

04-06-2021

About the game:

Navigate an ocean of crime and corruption to balance the bloody ecosystem of Necromunda as a merciless hired gun. The money's good, the dog's loyal, and the gun's reliable - but can you survive the hunt? Necromunda: Hired Gun is an indie fast-paced, violent, and thrilling FPS set in the darkest reaches of Warhammer 40,000's most infamous hive city.

For the right price, eliminate the most notorious gangers and mutants. Your armory is a sprawling arsenal. Your body is enhanced with a dozen customizable augments to run on walls and leap over chasms. Your cyber-mastiff will sniff out and kill enemies for you, while your grappling hook allows quick, agile traversal of the massive environments.

Price:

You can find this game on steam for 33,99€

My thoughts:

The trailers amount to some pretty egregious use of the term "bullshot" but at the same time, it's a tad bit more than I expected. That being said, it feels much too cheap to be worth the current asking price. I do not believe it's worth 40€ by a long shot. 20€ at most, maybe 15€. It takes a concept that was attempted to varying degrees of success with Underhive Wars and corrects some mistakes but creates others. Most of this game's loss of appeal exists in its jankiness. Some people like it. Some people find it charming. I do not. Stunted animation, and sometimes completely unresponsive shooting mechanics get in the way of the flow of combat. The sound design also seems to have a massive mixing issue, and some sounds that you would expect to be there are missing altogether. The graphics are decidedly "last-gen" however I cannot argue that some of the lighting work is top-notch. The world design is this game's biggest strength. You can tell the developers have the feel of Warhammer 40k nailed down to a science. If the games workshop gave this team more budget and time I would believe that they could make something much better. Unfortunately Hired Gun only exists as a brief and janky distraction from the usual. I would recommend it more if it was half the price.

Minimum specs to run this game:

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 / AMD FX-8350
RAM: 8 GB
OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
VIDEO CARD: 2 GB VRAM, GeForce GTX 960 / Radeon R9 280
PIXEL SHADER: 5.1
VERTEX SHADER: 5.1
DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2048 MB