Raise your hand if you were one of those Nintendo hardcore fans in 2015 who went out and bought Devil’s Third when it launched on the Wii U.

No one raising hands? That’s fine. I personally actually liked it, faults and all, but we all know why it isn’t fondly remembered today.

The studio that made Devil’s Third were not a bunch of rank amateurs when they made that game, and they didn’t just up and disappear after. While Valhalla Games no longer has their founder Tomonobu Itagaki at the helm, and they are no longer an independent game studio, as Soleil, they bring with them decades of experience.

You see, Soleil was formed with former staff members at Tecmo. They were some of the people who made the 3D Ninja Gaiden games and the Dead or Alive fighting games.

After Devil’s Third, Soleil took on quite a few action game projects, including Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, and the recently released Valkyrie Elysium. Today, with Wanted: Dead, they are looking to refine the particular style of high octane, high difficulty gameplay they are known for, clearly moving forward from the lessons they have learned making both Ninja Gaiden and Devil’s Third.

So, in Wanted: Dead, Hannah has a sword, very much like Ryu Hayabusa, but she also carries around any number of firearms, like Ivan. Unlike Hayabusa or Ivan, she can seamlessly shift from using guns or melee weapons any time she wants. In Devil’s Third, Soleil didn’t seem to be quite sure where they wanted to take this melee and shooter gameplay combination, so you could invariably switch between cover shooting, third person and first person shooting, and melee, but not in a way that felt intuitive. Now we see that Hannah is purely a third person shooter type of gal. Furthermore, she demonstrates quite a mastery of gun fu.

Unfortunately, you can’t just jump into gameplay and expect to feel like a god. Wanted: Dead is a physically demanding game, which will push both your motor skills and analytical skills in equal measure.

Thankfully, Hannah has a lot of options and ways to increase the odds in her favor. She can pick up weapons and ammo from downed players. More importantly, she can go through three skill trees, to improve her offense, defense, and support. Wanted: Dead will give you full freedom to customize your skill loadout as you desire. This does mean that you will be spending less time picking out loadouts, compared to, say, Borderlands. But given how hard Wanted: Dead promises to be, that’s more likely to be a good thing.

Wanted: Dead promises to be a Valentine’s Day massacre when it releases on February 14, 2023, on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, via Steam and Epic Games Store. You can read our coverage of the reveal trailer here and watch the combat trailer below.

Source: IGN on Youtube via Gematsu