Necromunda: Hired Gun

Necromunda: Hired Gun shoots itself in the foot with bugs galore, brain-dead AI, and a dull, nonsensical story.

Necromunda is a sight to behold, but it's undermined by wonky shooting, superfluous mechanics, and bugs.

The game's story never captures an ever-shifting gang war landscape of assassinations, ambushes, and back-stabbings. Instead, it leans into the worst aspects of Warhammer storytelling, throwing too many proper nouns at the player while also being too grim-dark for a setting that pretty much coined that term. You could skip most of the dialogue sections and the story could still be told with its visuals; in fact, that might even be more effective. Even though a lot of the levels look similar, there is still a history and sense of massive scale and character in each area you jump, shoot, and sprint through.

And so, Necromunda often oscillates between a brilliant indie gem and a frustrating mid-tier game.

Necromunda: Hired Gun will need a lot of work to get it into a state anywhere close to one we could recommend playing. Actually activating aim assist shouldn't be a tall order, but the same cannot be said of the abysmal frame rate and long list of glitches and issues. Without them, the game could be considered somewhat average. With them, we question how Necromunda: Hired Gun was allowed to ship on PS5 in the first place.

Necromunda: Hired Gun has a certain grungy charm and offers up some clever ideas, but unrefined core mechanics, messy level design, and a shameful lack of polish ultimately add up to Necro-no-fun-da. Hardcore Games Workshop fanatics might still find something to enjoy here, but I recommend you don't hire this gun at anything but a steep discount.

Overall, the game can easily take you 6 - 8 hour to complete giving you some space to tackle on side activities. It is unfortunate that the game ultimately suffers from being released a bit too early as I felt that it did have a lot of potential.

Some good warhammer 40k vibes can be found here but there's just a bit too much going on in Necromunda: Hired Gun. The fast-paced FPS gameplay needs refining and is constantly slowed down by the RPG elements which in turn are not allowed to shine through the FPS aspect. I actually think this setting would lend itself more to a Skyrim style RPG more so than a first person shooter but this is what we got and I am actually a bit gutted that I can't like it more than I do.

Necromunda: Hired Gun is a game that goes far from doing justice to the setting, having serious problems in its gameplay and a narrative that does not hold the player at any time. Add to that a vast amount of technical problems and it's a game to be avoided.

In the end, the Hired Gun could be a pleasant surprise, but the development team's choices are what keep it from shining.