Wanted: Dead

Introduction

Wanted: Dead follows the Zombie Unit, an elite Hong Kong police squad, through a single chaotic week of sword-and-gunfire combat against a sprawling corporate conspiracy, built by Soleil Ltd. as a deliberate throwback to PS2-era action games from developers with Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive pedigree. Published by Viv's Final Day Off Ltd, it released 14 February 2023 for NZ$43.59. Nearly three years on, it holds 2,104 Steam reviews sitting at a lifetime Mixed, roughly 66.1%, with recent sentiment holding close at 65%. This review reads a substantial share of both the negative and positive samples, and finds two distinct stories worth telling separately: a genuinely divisive launch built on deliberate jank, and a fresh, unrelated controversy this review verified directly just days before writing.

A game its own fans admit is jank, and love anyway

Wanted: Dead's own store description calls itself "a janky love letter to PS2-era action," and this review's sample largely agrees with that framing on both sides of the recommend button. Combat — mixing sword-based melee, third-person gunplay and limb-severing finishers — draws consistent criticism as clunky and inconsistent, with reviewers describing an uneven difficulty curve and responsiveness that doesn't match modern action-game standards. Story and voice acting fare worse: reviewers repeatedly describe the writing and delivery as barely coherent, several reaching for the same comparison to "The Room" for its unintentional comedy rather than genuine dramatic weight. What makes this review's sample genuinely interesting is how many reviewers embrace exactly these qualities rather than being driven away by them — several specifically compare the experience favourably to cult curiosities like WET and the notoriously rough Devil's Third, describing a so-bad-it's-good charm that a tighter, more polished game couldn't replicate. Character designs and the game's cyberpunk Hong Kong setting draw genuine, specific credit even from harsher reviewers, and minigames scattered through the campaign draw a smaller, more one-sided complaint as unpolished filler that disrupts pacing rather than adding welcome variety.

A fresh, separate controversy this review verified directly

Distinct from the game's original 2023 reception, this review's sample shows a real, very recent controversy: in early August 2026, days before this review was written, the game's store page key art was quietly replaced with AI-adjusted assets, and reviewers report the change initially arrived without any disclosure — a violation of Steam's own policy requiring one. That drew a fast, sharp wave of negative reviews specifically about the art change, including from reviewers who simultaneously praised the game itself and objected only to how its marketing was being handled. This review checked the store page directly rather than relying on the allegation alone, and found the developer has since added a formal AI Generated Content Disclosure, which reads in part: "We have used AI to slightly adjust our existing, human-made key art for this store page. There is no generative AI in the development or running game and the adjusted key art on this store page is not present within the game." That's a meaningful clarification worth reporting alongside the original complaint — the developer's own statement specifies the AI use was limited to store-page marketing art, not the game itself, and that disclosure now exists where reviewers initially say it didn't. This review can't verify the full history of when exactly the disclosure was added relative to the backlash, but the current state of the store page is transparent about the situation in a way the initial wave of reviews describes it as not having been.

Final Verdict

Wanted: Dead is exactly the kind of game its own marketing promises: a deliberately rough, PS2-throwback action title that will frustrate players looking for modern polish and genuinely charm a smaller audience drawn to exactly that roughness. This review's sample bears that split out clearly rather than resolving it — the combat and story are legitimately uneven by any conventional measure, and a real cult following has formed around embracing that rather than in spite of it. Layered on top is a separate, more recent story about the game's store page specifically, which this review verified directly: an initially undisclosed AI-art swap, followed by a clear developer disclosure limiting the AI's role to marketing assets rather than the game itself. Buy it for the jank if that's your taste, on a discount, and judge the recent art controversy on the developer's own now-public statement rather than the earlier wave of undisclosed-change reviews alone.