Necromunda: Hired Gun beginner’s guide, tips, and tricks (2025)

Necromunda: Hired Gun is a fast-paced first-person shooter set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Unlike the games that usually take place in this world, Hired Gun requires relentless movement, shooting, and utilization of special skills — plus you have a powerful dog companion.

In this Necromunda: Hired Gun beginner’s guide, we’ll help you with the start of your journey. This guide covers helpful topics like navigating the game’s maze-like levels, how being aggressive keeps you alive, and what upgrades you should pick at the start.

At the beginning of Necromunda: Hired Gun, you learn that other characters have dropped green beacons around each level. Mechanically, these glowing pieces of machinery help guide you toward the critical path in each mission. Whenever you’re lost, look for a green beacon.

Waypoints always guide you toward your next destination, but the path forward isn’t always clear. By following green beacons — or even ledges and platforms with neon green lights — you’ll eventually end up where you need to be.

If you can’t find where to go, use your advanced movement skills, like double jumps and the grappling hook, and explore your surroundings. Defeating all the current enemies in a room usually unlocks the way forward, too. You’ll know you can advance when the battle music ends. Once it’s over, look around for any green beacons and continue your quest.

If you do get lost, there’s no need to worry. Hidden loot, ammo, and collectible treasure chests can be found off the critical path. If you encounter an interesting-looking area that isn’t highlighted by a green beacon, follow it. There’s a good chance you’ll find hidden goodies on your detour.

As you fight through Necromunda: Hired Gun, items like ammo fly out of defeated enemies. Regaining health also requires that you stay in combat. Hanging back and being defensive actually puts you at a disadvantage.

Run through each battlefield picking up the ammo that enemies drop, and you’ll always have ammo. As long as you keep moving and shooting, you’ll never run out of resources, even in the most drawn-out firefights.

In between combat, you’ll find important items like chests, which contain loot and money. Chests, ammo reserves, and other items are also highlighted green.

In Necromunda: Hired Gun, you have two resources keeping you alive: your armor and your health.

When your health starts taking damage, fighting back is the quickest way to restore it. That’s because you have a skill called autosanguine. Every time you take damage, your hand gains a red aura. If you return fire and hit enemies while autosanguine is active, you’ll recover health. Later in the game, you’ll be able to upgrade this skill and massively increase the health you restore by returning fire.

The autosanguine skill also works with takedowns, a one-hit kill that you can perform whenever you sneak up behind or stagger an enemy. Opponents become staggered if you continually fire at them, and they drop their weapons for a moment and waver. Get in close, and a prompt appears on the screen letting you know you can perform a takedown.

You start the game with a loveable mastiff dog as your companion (and yes, you can pet it). This pal accompanies you on each mission and provides backup when you request it.

Your mastiff’s greatest skill is locating enemies in the vicinity. With the press of a button, your dog barks and highlights all available enemies in red. Your opponents stay visible for several seconds, even through walls. If your mastiff is near an enemy, it will attack it, taking it down all on its own.

Your dog can also attack enemies of your choosing. Highlight an enemy, and press your companion’s action button. If your mastiff has a direct path, it will attack them. If your dog can’t reach them, a prompt on screen will tell you so. This ability is especially helpful for distracting larger enemies. Your dog won’t defeat them, but you can lay plenty of shots into the enemy while they’re focused on your dog.

Your mastiff’s tracking has a short cooldown between uses, so don’t rely on it too heavily. Once your dog’s tracking ability begins refreshing its timer, a red ring appears around the dog icon on the left of your screen. Once the ring runs out and turns white, your mastiff can track again.

Throughout each mission, you’ll receive gear. If you find new weapons, you can equip them on the spot or place them into your inventory for later. You’ll also find items you can wear, but you can’t equip them immediately. They’re only available after your mission.

Each mission ends with a loot screen. From here, you can see all the gear you found and equip the various pieces of gear you’ve collected.

Whatever you don’t keep, you can automatically sell for cash once you exit the loot screen. Keep in mind that you have five pages of equippable slots for Archotech and Lucky Charms. Equip as many of these items as you can. The small boosts you get from each can really stack up.

Augmetics alter your character and mastiff with permanent stat boosts or new abilities. After the first mission, you can speak to the Rogue Doc in the game’s central hub to exchange credit for upgrades. Once an upgrade is unlocked, you can spend more cash to boost their effectiveness.

The first talent you should unlock is Augur Array. This upgrade lets you scan your immediate area, revealing all enemies and items you can pick up.

Paired with your mastiff’s tracking ability, these skills are great for surveying your surroundings and learning enemy locations. The action in Necromunda: Hired Gun can get hectic, so good use of both of these skills cuts down on confusion. Balance the cooldowns of both skills so you always have one or the other available when you need it.

If you’re having trouble staying alive, upgrade the autosanguine ability. The more you upgrade this skill, the faster you can restore life. At higher levels, even a few shots can restore massive chunks of health. You can also upgrade the Refractor Field if you think more armor will help you survive firefights better.

Another skill that helps in combat is Perfect Aim, which improves your aim and snaps your crosshair directly onto enemies. This short-term ability helps you quickly turn the tide in battle. It’s best used when a new wave of enemies comes in from a room or hallway. When the ability is active, you can quickly mow down an onslaught of enemies without much trouble.

You can also upgrade your mastiff and increase general stats like health, tracking ability, and damage output. Each new skill you unlock also alters your dog’s appearance. As it receives more upgrades, its robotic parts make it more machine than man’s best friend.