Streum On Studio and Focus Home Interactive recently released a new game in the massive Warhammer universe. This one is a first person shooter set in the Underhive, a highly industrialized metropolis teeming with seedy characters and violence. As a merc, you take on various missions across a variety of settings, facing an assortment of shoot-first enemies. Necromunda: Hired Gun sounded like a fun FPS romp to start the summer, and while it does have its merits, it has some significant hitches that taint the experience and keep this one firmly in the ‘AA’ category.
AA is not a bad place to be — and every console generation has its share of third party titles that are in this group. Though not amongst the very best games, they’re still head and shoulders above the shovelware. Still, these AAs have ample room for improvement, and that’s where I land with Necromunda. It has some fine ideas and some good execution in areas, but it doesn’t quite escape the intense gravitational pull of mediocrity that is brought on due to numerous drawbacks, technical and otherwise.
So let’s have a closer look, starting from the general and drawing in. First, the Warhammer universe is vast and established, and even though most folks probably don’t know a thing about it, it’s not so big as to be inaccessible. I have little to no knowledge of Warhammer, and while I’m sure there were references and things to Warhammer lore that went right over my head, I didn’t feel too much like a fish out of water. Before each mission, between a little NPC dialog and description reading during the load screen, you have enough to go on, and, this isn’t the game that is going to try and tell a deep story anyway. Rather, Necromunda takes its cue from the likes of 2016’s DOOM, sporting very flashy and fast FPS action, from double jumps with levels featuring vertical design to execution kills that yield health to being able to slide, grapple, climb, and even wall-run, too. Extra points for a lettered score are given during the course of a mission for stylish kills, a gameplay element that reminded me of Devil May Cry and Bulletstorm.
Numerous character and weapon upgrades make this fast-paced action all the more intriguing. It might be saying something that crouch is assigned to L3, which is also assigned to sliding (if you press L3 while moving), and even left, right, and back movements of the left stick perform quick dashes, great for ducking in and out of cover. I have to admit it took me a good hour to get used to not having a more convenient crouch button, and toggling crouch was also not an option, meaning you have to hold L3 to crouch. I came to realize how much I crouch during most FPS encounters, and the adjustment here was noticeable, but not damning. On other other hand, being able to double jump from the get-go and then obtaining the grapple hook within the first couple of hours sped up the action even more. Double-jumping makes navigating the environment quick and interesting as you’re encouraged to search for treasure boxes, some number of which are well hidden throughout each level. On the other hand, double-jumping and inadvertently falling off of the map was the leading cause of character death during my play, too. I also had mixed feelings about the grapple hook as it seemed, like other elements of the game I’ll mention later, kind of lazy and even a bit sloppy.
I’d be remise if I didn’t mention your merc’s trustworthy cybernetic pooch friend, who is mapped to the Circle button. It does feature a cooldown mechanic, but while active, the mastiff is pretty darn capable. Using it reveals enemies in the area with a red outline, even if they’re on the other side of walls, and the pooch will takedown nearby foes with good results, too. For bigger enemies, it usually can’t take them down, but it sure can distract them, leaving you to have good, clear shots at them. I liked the inclusion of the hound, and how the player can upgrade them in between missions, too.
Players can certainly upgrade more than just their faithful dog — weapons, armor, and your characters own bionics can be upgraded for an in-game-currency price by visiting the shady-looking ‘doctor’ in between missions. The nexus area between missions is known as Martyr’s End, and players are sent here after completing a missions. Side missions and story missions are available, as well as a practice area and a few NPCs to chat with and do business with. Before missions, players fill out their character loadout, which includes multiple weapons, charms and bonus perks based off of items either bought or found in previous missions, items like medkits and so on. The further you get into the game, the more guns, items, charms, and so on you collect during missions (which you can keep or sell). You also have the option to replay previously completed missions to try to find any treasure chests you missed, to net a better score, or just stock up on supplies a bit. I found going back to previous missions with freshly upgraded weapons to be pretty satisfying, like having a long range scope for my assault rifle allowed me to get a huge jump on the enemies from range. Random side note — I really did not care for fighting the Eschers, a faction of female characters; I just can’t go along with fighting females.
So Necromunda has some good things going for it. Yet, despite a patch released this week, there’s still a lot of rough edges, some more pronounced than others. For one, the AI, though I think it has improved with the patch, is still pretty awful in as far as their being braindead goons. I also thought enemy placement was kind of cheap as you’ll have enemies more or less teleport in, arena style, during moments when the game kicks in this forgettable metal music (a la DOOM, just not as good). Embarrassingly, the fast-paced music will continue to play until you find and kill all of the AI, and sometimes you’ll find them stuck or otherwise not behaving realistically.
Other issues include general technical problems. Playing on my PS5, I did not experience any freezes, but there were framerate dips at times, clipping, object pop-in, that kind of thing that just go to show that the game needs some further patching, and it may very well continue to get patches being that there was one already this week. Other issues are less patchable — a thoroughly uninteresting protagonist who is vain and generic, and not likeable, combined with a mediocre story and level design that uses a lot of symmetry and repetition that feels kind of cookie cutter. Graphics, though great in some instances, are cheesy in others, like the overdone blood sprays and the animation when you grapple-pull an enemy’s shield from them just doesn’t look or behave right, either.
In sum, Necromunda: Hired Gun is a very mixed offering. It seems that for every pro the game brings, there is a con to match it. I still had fun with Necromunda, but the experience is tainted significantly by the various issues — technical and otherwise — that the game has at the time of this writing.
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