WANTED: DEAD

A shooter-slasher seeking to relive PS2's weirdest moments

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Developer Soleil

Publisher Industries

Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series

Origin Switzerland

Release 2022

Sergei Kolobashkin is in the process of explaining why Wanted: Dead features a live-action cooking show when he says something that seems to sum up the game's entire existence: "Why? Because, why not". Those four words could serve as an origin story for both 110 Industries, founded by Kolobashkin after he left a career in the energy industry to turn his hand to videogames, and for its debut a blend of third-person cover shooter and katana slasher that occasionally morphs into a 16bit shoot-'em-up, a rhythm game and, yes, a cookery show.

It feels out of sync with the rest of modern videogames that's deliberate, it turns out. "At some point I noticed - and it happened long time ago that developers and publishers started to take fewer chances," Kolobashkin says. He describes Wanted: Dead as a love letter to the sixth generation of consoles, a time when budgets were smaller and it was easier to take risks, referencing Mr Moskeeto and Grasshopper Manufacture's Michigan: Report From Hell. "Can you imagine [those games] being made today?"