Necromunda: Hired Gun | Xbox One Review

I don’t know a single thing about Warhammer. I’ve never interacted with it in any way, none of the tabletop stuff, video games, comics, etc. It’s a bit of a nerd blindspot. The recent wave of Necromunda games hitting consoles caught my eye, though. That part of this universe has a sharp look, and I finally saw my opportunity to hop in with Necromunda: Hired Gun.

A World of Metal and Hate

As I said, this universe really captures the imagination. As you might be able to glean from the screenshots, I’d best describe it as a techo-horror nightmarescape. Nearly every character barely resembles the human underneath anymore, so covered are they with sharp metal, bionic upgrades, and face markings.

Most people belong to a Gang or House, and take violent stances to back their allegiances. Everyone just sort of looks and acts mean, and it presents a world that you want to be constantly exploring. Nothing in the game brings you up to speed on lore or terminology, they just are what they are. I always love that in an established setting, because it makes everything seem significantly more lived-in.

You play as an unnamed mercenary (that you choose the gender and face of), hence the title Necromunda: Hired Gun. Early on, you’re ambushed and left for dead. A man named Kal Jerico, who I guess is a known and beloved character in the Necromunda universe, saves your sorry ass and expects some help in return. In a fun move, you essentially tell him to sod off at the start and go your own way.

You Don’t Need a High IQ to Fire a Gun

I mention this in specific detail only because your character doubles down on this stance throughout the game. The protagonist is actually kind of a brash idiot, which I enjoyed. Several times they are confronted with help or an easy route, but instead flip the helper off, swear in their face, and choose a path much harder. It never works out for them, and it happens with such frequency that it has to be intentional. Your protagonist wants to be a badass, but is just too dumb to pull it off.

Whether you take to that or not, it doesn’t matter. Telling an intricate tale is not what Necromunda: Hired Gun is interested in. It provides just enough context to funnel you into the levels. Hired Gun is interested in one thing and one thing only: shooting people in the face.

Fast as Lightning

Kinetic FPS games are a ton of fun, and Necromunda is no different. It’s fast-paced and focused on verticality. The combat arenas the firefights play out in provide a lot of options. You can wall-run, use a grappling hook, dodge in mid-air, double jump, and slide while running. Every arena is designed to incentivize using all of these abilities. When things are firing on all cylinders, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. I was always excited when I was presented with a ton of enemies and a huge combat arena.

Always Be Learning

There’s a bit of an upgrade path in Necromunda: Hired Gun. Both you and your cyber mastiff can be upgraded as you play. That cyber mastiff ends up being a lot cooler on paper than in practice. He doesn’t do much beyond distracting enemies, even though he’s supposed to be this menacing predator your foes should fear. Mostly he runs around struggling with pathfinding, though he does get to look pretty gnarly and scary as you upgrade him. My mastiff ended up having giant glowing goggles for his eyes and a metal shark-like jaw. A cute boy he was not, though you can still pet him like a good boy.

As for your own character, sure there are upgrades. The only one I found useful, though, was the ability to slow down time for your enemies. There’s some other standard sort of video game skills, but I found the pace of the game didn’t really gel with a lot of them. Why use an area-repulse ability to escape a sticky situation when I could use a far more interesting grappling hook? You can also only bind a single ability to the shortcut button, otherwise you have to use a wheel-selection interface, which completely ruins your zen-like combat trance.

What Was That?

It’s near impossible to engage with the upgrade mechanics anyway, because the text in your menus is nigh-unreadable. I’m not just talking about the all-too-common “text being too small” problem; it’s nearly ineligible in every menu. The text is of such a low visual quality that it comes out completely blurry. It hurts to try to read, not that you could anyway. I often didn’t bother trying to figure out my best equipment, because it wasn’t worth the headache it’d give me. And I’m here to tell you that sticking with early-game weapons and charms didn’t hurt anything.

In fact, loot is generally useless in Necromunda: Hired Gun. I find a lot of loot systems in games superfluous, but it’s especially egregious here. Despite the loot “magnetizing” to you for pickups, the entire system nonetheless feels at odds with the fast-paced nature of the gunplay. I would go so far as to say it felt like a kinetic FPS was built first, and then RPG mechanics were stapled on top of it to bring it more in line with its pen-and-paper roots.

Rip and Tear, Until it is Done

I’ve never been bothered by a game performing poorly technically, and that remains true here, but I felt compelled to give a warning for those that do get bothered. I played on a standard Xbox One, and the game struggled at times. The framerate regularly slows down during firefights, sometimes crawling to a complete stop for a few seconds. There’s also a bizarre semi-often glitch that reverts the y-axis inverted option for maybe half a second before working again. It never got me killed, but it did put me in a precarious spot a time or two.

Despite its shortcomings, I came away enjoying my time with Necromunda: Hired Gun. It has a campaign of around eight hours, which is a breath of fresh air in this day and age. It does have some additional challenge modes if you’re so inclined, but for the budget price, the length is perfect. When you’re in the midst of combat using all the movement options at your disposal, it’s a complete thrill. If you can ignore all the RPG bloat, and I highly suggest you do, there’s a fast, fun shooter with a top-notch setting for you to dive into.

To hear me talk more about Necromunda: Hired Gun, be sure to listen to Episode 349 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast.

This review is based on an Xbox One copy of Necromunda: Hired Gun provided by Sandbox Strategies. It is also available on PlayStation and PC.