Necromunda: Hired Gun PC Review – A Solid 40k Shooter With Too Much Untapped Potential

This Necromunda: Hired Gun PC review will go over a rather solid 40k shooter that was very close to being one of the best Doom clones out there, but ended up falling a bit short. Still, it’s a lot of fun for any 40k fan out there.

But before we dive into the game, let’s answer some of the most commonly asked questions about this particular title.

What is Necromunda: Hired Gun?

Necromunda: Hired Gun is an action-packed FPS based on the 1995 tabletop game, Necromunda.

Who made Necromunda: Hired Gun?

Necromunda: Hired Gun was developed by Streum On Studio and published by Focus Home Interactive.

What time does Necromunda: Hired Gun release?

Necromunda: Hired Gun was released on May 31, 2021.

How long is Necromunda: Hired Gun?

Necromunda: Hired Gun needs anywhere from 8-11 hours for completion, depending on the difficulty.

How much is Necromunda: Hired Gun?

You can buy Necromunda: Hired Gun for 39,99€.

Where can I find a cheap Necromunda: Hired Gun key?

You can buy a cheap Necromunda: Hired Gun key on HRK Game.

Untapped potential

Let me tell you one thing; I was very excited to write this Necromunda: Hired Gun PC review because, as it happens, I adore the 40K setting. Unfortunately, the potential this game has was never achieved fully. I imagined Necromunda: Hired Gun as a Doom game, just one set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. There are glimpses of that combination, but that dynamic combat found in Doom was nowhere to be found here. Rather tragic, I still enjoyed my time with Necromunda: Hired Gun and its many guns because all 40K guns are insanely cool to use.

Necromunda is a hive-world. Basically, a place where you have bounty hunters, cultists, demons, gangs, and everything else the 40K setting has to offer. Naturally, it’s the perfect setting for a hectic and violent first-person shooter with robot dogs, grappling hooks, and grimy futuristic weapons. But as you play the game, you get the feeling that all the grandeur of the setting isn’t backed up with the action that we expected to see. At least not in the capacity that we all wanted to see.

A bad start

The first two missions of Hired Gun left a nasty taste in my mouth. My bounty hunter’s initial weapons felt terrible to wield, and the hyper-fast, Doom-like action just didn’t feel right. While the player is quick, sharp, and agile, the enemy AI is not. Then I managed to get my hands on a sexy Bolter, a fully automatic rocket-propelled weapon. The game finally became really enjoyable when I combined that with the grappling hook that Necromunda: Hired Gun took far too long to supply.

However, the enemy AI never improved, and the lack of enemy variety is disappointing. The world of Necromunda is plenty of diverse opponents to confront, although the player is mainly pitted against Goliath, Escher, and Orlock gangers. (You will fight other opponents, but I won’t reveal who they are.) While the three gangs are significantly diverse in terms of what they are skilled at and how they appear, they always do three things:

• Stand in place and just casually wait for you to kill them
• Teleport close to you so they can die right away
• Dump ammo in your direction and then wait for you to shoot them

The player’s movement range hints that the fighting will be rapid, harsh, and dynamic. Although it is fast and brutal, it never gets dynamic.

Too ambitious?

While Necromunda: Hired Gun on PC wants to do many different things simultaneously, it seems like the dev team didn’t have enough time to polish them properly. The mission structure and the narrative are incredibly bland. For example, we have the game’s central hub world. It’s a bounty hunters’ den where you take your missions and side missions. Vendors are there to supply you with new weapons and cool augmetics. The narrative? You get pieces of info from three people between missions. That’s it; it’s not very enticing or relayed to the player interestingly. Of course, Necromunda: Hired Gun has a fair share of exciting developments and characters, but those are few and far between considering how rich the setting is.

When you accept a mission in Necromunda: Hired Gun, you are transported to a big area full of puzzles and people you need to take down. Maps offer little exploration and some secrets, but they’ve never really been the hive-world murder playground I expected to see.

Necromunda: Hired Gun and its gameplay shine once the chaos starts

When the battle begins, Necromunda: Hired Gun transforms into a genuinely entertaining cacophony of mayhem and cartoonish gore. The sound design is deliciously punchy, and player movement feels excellent, despite everything else around it being pretty poor. Combat never varies unless you force it to by experimenting with different weaponry, employing your trusty cyber-dog more frequently (yep, you have a dog companion that you can pet and feed), or increasing the complexity.

The game’s ambition can be observed on the outskirts. It portrays a compelling concept whenever it goes beyond what it can legitimately do. The execution may be mediocre, but the design team’s apparent effort to appropriately display Necromunda’s setting and combat worked for me. While the battle is never difficult, it makes you feel like a bounty hunter—a lone hired gun everyone is after. Some of the more fascinating moments in Necromunda: Hired Gun occur when you come onto ongoing gang wars and must fight your way through both sides while they attack one another. It brings the location to life, but it also reveals where the narrative falls short.

The story fails to capture the hive-world’s insanity

Necromunda: Hired Gun and its gameplay work, that’s all I can say. This makes me sad since the story never builds upon the whole gang war shenanigans dominating the hive-world. Assassinations, backstabbing, political clashes, cultists doing crazy shit, all that good stuff, makes this setting so enticing. But the game doesn’t seem too interested in making us invested in all of that. The scale and aesthetic of each map you visit is insane, but you’re not told anything important about this place. It’s all super vague and could work if they just completely leaned into visual storytelling. But they didn’t, so we get this mess of a story that doesn’t really do anything.

When you look at many Necromunda: Hired Gun Steam user reviews, you see how everyone was taken aback by the love and detail given to the setting. But that’s mostly where the praise ends, as everything else is just serviceable. However, the game doesn’t overstay its welcome, so you can have 6 hours of fun while blasting 40K gangs with a Bolter. If only the enemies were a TAD BIT MORE CAPABLE, this would have been one excellent first-person shooter with a terrific setting.

Conclusion

Necromunda: Hired Gun is a solid game. It’s perfectly fine and, luckily, brief. Nonetheless, I’m pleased with it. I never expected to see a first-person shooter in which I’d dash through the underhive of Necromunda, fighting my way over sunken Imperial chapels and shrine rooms of hazy intent while firing a Bolter at opponents I’d fought on the tabletop over and over. If you appreciate Warhammer 40,000 and Necromunda in particular, you’ll have a good time, even though it will be short.

Playing this game for the Necromunda: Hired Gun PC review had me dreaming of a world where this title got a lot more time in the oven. And a lot more polish. The pieces are there for a chaotic Doom-clone set in one of the most badass futuristic settings available right now. But unfortunately, the game never managed to reach the brilliant heights it could have.

In the end, you can have a blast with Necromunda: Hired Gun. Just know that it won’t be as amazing as it looks on paper, but it’s still very fun to play. ESPECIALLY if you’re a 40k fan.

You can buy your Necromund: Hired Gun Steam key on HRK Game today!