Mimimi Games has distinguished itself as a leader in the real-time tactics genre, with wonderful games such as Shadow Tactics and Desperados III on its CV. The developer’s next game builds on the successful formula, throwing in even more freedom to play exactly how you want.
Read our review of Desperados III »
Split my jib sails
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew – as the game is called – invites you on a pirate voyage in a world full of supernatural themes. In other words, Mimimi moves a little away from the more realistic settings in its previous games. As Gamer.no saw during a presentation last week, the main experience remains largely the same as in both Shadow Tactics and Desperados III.
You get to know what enemies see and hear, and must choose how to deal with each situation.
Mimimi Games
In short, players must navigate through a number of different boards to carry out various missions. The boards are packed with enemies that patrol back and forth, and stealth is the alpha and omega.
This time you get to choose from a total of eight playable characters – all with unique weapons and supernatural properties. During the presentation, we got to see three of these. Afia can move from place to place at lightning speed and Mr. Mercury disappears into another dimension and jumps forward to surprise enemies. Gaëlle can use her cannon to shoot helpers to other locations on the map or enemies to her certain death.
Freedom to choose
Before each mission, you get an overview of the area you will occupy. You then have to choose which pirates you want to take with you, based on how you want to solve the challenges ahead. The whole thing can then be dealt with in real time or by using various time-manipulating abilities – such as pausing everything or rewinding time.
As mentioned, Shadow Gambit promises even more freedom than in previous Mimimi games. This applies both to the choice of the characters you play as, but also in which order you tackle the missions and how you solve each of them. For example, you can choose where on the map your characters start and where they leave the area when the mission is completed.
Watch some gameplay from Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew.
With the supernatural abilities you have to play with – see a taste in the trailer to the right – at first glance, it may seem that Shadow Gambit will not be as challenging as, say, Desperados III. However, Mimimi CEO Dominik Abé said that the level of difficulty depends on how you choose to play.
Mimimi has tried to create a game that is more accessible to players who may not have much experience with real-time tactics. At the same time, Shadow Gambit has a higher so-called “skill ceiling”, which means that driven fans can find many more and more advanced combinations and tactics to tackle the missions.
We’ll see how it all works later this year. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is scheduled to launch in 2023, but has not yet been given a more precise date. The game is coming to PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
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