Recenze Necromunda: Hired Gun – Warhammer jako Doom

It’s not worth walking around the hot mess, from the first videos most players agreed that the most interesting aspect of the new game from the world of Warhammer 40,000 is how much its playability and music resemble a wildly adrenaline-fueled cut from Doom Eternal. Although this is what the game really does, once you get into a good shootout, its level design and set-up are different enough to make you feel like you’re playing something else. At times, for example, the game reminded me more of the titles from the Metro or Space Hulk series – after all, Deathwing from 2016 was given to us by the authors of this Necromunda.

• Platform: PC (peer-reviewed version), PS4, PS5, Xbox
• Date of publication: 1. 6. 2021
• Producer: Streum On Studio (Francie)
• Genre: FPS
• Czech localization: born
• Multiplayer: born
• Data to download: 50 GB
• Game time: 8+ hours
• Accessibility: 18+
• Sales version: box (released on June 30) and digital
• Price: 949 CZK (Xzone)

Scrap yard of the future

Unfortunately, I am not one of the great connoisseurs of the board game Warhammer 40,000 and its lore, however, this is several video games that I quite regretted. Once again, she gave the impression that the source substance was really quirky and thoughtful. Necromunda is a “mechanized planet” whose gigantic foundries, forges and other industrial conveniences reach dimensions we don’t even think of. In practice, these gigantic production complexes rise to inaccessible heights, and deep below their peaks, many floors of a “scrap yard” are created, where the burned fuel falls, but also all sorts of remnants of old factories or equipment. It can’t be described well enough, you just have to see it.

In this fascinating multi-layered underworld, shrouded in smoke and covered with ashes, a plethora of organized gangs thrive, fighting together for territory and resources. Your character (whose gender and appearance you can choose) is a mercenary and a bounty hunter. You will set out on the territory of warring gangs to eliminate their worst villains and then get a reward from the local authorities for their heads. But everything gets a little complicated when you get trapped and your breadwinner brings you back to life after death with a mysterious improvement in your head (yes, it’s downright like a plot from Cyberpunk, just without Kean). Gradually, it turns out that in the war of the underworld, this time the powerful are involved “from above” and everything revolves around the ruins of a mysterious laboratory with extraordinary technologies.

Gradually, it turns out that the powerful “from above” were involved in the war of the underworld.

The plot, the world and the story of the play are definitely interesting, but thanks to relatively weak dialogues, even weaker acting performances and an incredibly bad sound mix, you won’t enjoy telling the story much, despite the presence of many interviews with the characters and some of the movies. In practice, you will return to the local town after each mission to purchase and improve your equipment, talk to the NPC, and then choose another mission from the menu. In addition to the thirteen main story missions (15-30 minutes long), optional side missions will gradually start to open to you, which are roughly five-minute sections of missions that have already been completed, but with some extra task. If you play on one of the higher difficulties, it may be a way to catch up on the equipment, but otherwise you can skip this repetitive activity. By the way, when it comes to equipment, despite the seemingly great emphasis on collecting and improving it in the game, there is no inventory or menu of the character, so you can only deal with these things at merchants or when starting a mission.

Healthy foundation, unhealthy rest

When it comes to shooting, the game can really unleash a great adrenaline merry-go-round, which, thanks to the high agility of your character and metal music, strongly resembles the aforementioned Doom Eternal. The creators also place great emphasis on running along the wall, which you will use not only in combat, but also to overcome several navigation puzzles during the campaign. Weapons are usually properly thunderous, as befits a Warhammer. Unfortunately, the whole state of the game is undermined by the technical condition of the game. I have already mentioned the incomprehensibly bad sound mix (when dialogues are often unnecessarily quiet), but in addition, aiming at the controller is annoying (which is of course a problem with the shooter) and you will also come across a whole host of “traditional” bugs, such as character gliding. for animations or flickering textures. Artificial intelligence doesn’t help anything either, which usually just runs against you, unless it gets stuck. Almost all of them are humanoids, which detracts from the variety that makes Doom’s “action puzzles” so colorful. The icing on the cake are fights with bosses, their mechanics are sometimes frustrating and their lifespan is somewhat oversized.

It somehow holds it all together, and when the fight starts, you still have fun, but it’s definitely clear that the game deserved some extra time. In addition to amusing wild skirmishes, I kept playing so keen on seeing another interesting location in this fascinating world. And I did, because you can look, among other things, at the nest of genestealers or the ruins of that mysterious laboratory: the world of Necromunda is definitely the star of this show, although it is a little damaging to the ubiquitous gray-beige color palette. The impression of the expedition is also spoiled by occasional drops of fluency, apparently related to the transitions between the movies and the game. All sorts of game systems are also halfway there – you can improve your dog guide, but it will rather hinder you in the fight (it gets tangled in the wound, etc.). Weapons have extensive possibilities for improvement, but you will hardly notice the differences. It’s a shame, because with a little extra care, this could have been a surprisingly enjoyable budget game. Instead, I remembered how hard it is to write reviews of average titles.

We test the latest PC games on a powerful computer LYNX Grunex 2020.