It is therefore this year that the big return of Mimimi Games will take place with a brand new tactical infiltration game, this time entirely financed by itself (with the help of a few investors, all the same). Founded in Munich in 2008, the studio has never caught on to delusions of grandeur and has grown cautiously, which has earned it a total of 36 employees today, barely more than at the time. of the launch of Desperados III in 2020.
After a first game released on mobile in 2011 (daWindci) and a 3D action-adventure game released in 2014 (The Last Tinker: City of Colors), the studio founded by Johannes Roth and Dominik Abé released its benchmark title and found its true calling in 2016 with Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, to which he will even offer an independent extension in 2020 to return to the past of one of the game’s characters, Aiko. Less well sold, Desperados III nonetheless, it too remains a critical success for most fans. So, once feudal Japan and the Wild West had been conquered, what setting was going to hold the attention of Munich’s fine tacticians?
Ghost Ship Games
The answer falls after a few seconds of this pretty cinematic announcement. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew does not bother with any historical authenticity and goes sailing in the fictitious Caribbean at the controls of a band of cursed pirates endowed with fantastic powers. Between Pirates of the CaribbeanSea of Thieves and Dishonored, the atmosphere dark fantasy cartoon is posed and allows the developers to unpack a whole lot of new possibilities when it comes to game philosophy.
While remaining in the genre of strategic stealth seen from above, the game offers a technical upgrade with rich and detailed environments, between the turquoise waters that border the fine sandy beaches and the fortresses on the side of cliffs passing through the towns from which resound the songs of the sailors. In difficulty with platforms that are a little too old or not powerful enough (the studio had estimated that the Switch would have had a hard time accommodating Desperados III), Mimimi Games is also focusing its efforts on the PS5, Xbox Series and PC (Steam, Epic Games Store) with a view to a release in 2023.
Taking place in an alternate version of the Golden Age of Piracy, Shadow Gambit will offer us to assemble a band of ghost pirates over the course of the game, with the main common objective of getting our hands on a very mysterious treasure and challenging the Ardent Virgin Inquisition, a faction with little tolerance for everything related to the supernatural. Just as the constitution of the crew of a certain Straw Hat began under the impulse of Luffy, here it is the so-called Afia Manicato, pirate navigator with dreadlocks, who will gradually compose a troop as she gathers the Black Pearls (a Black Pearl = a new unlocked character).
Each of the 8 crew members will come with their own supernatural personality and abilities to overcome the challenges of the game and allow the player to pull off loads of different power combinations. Between two missions, these spectral buccaneers will gather in the Red Marley. Curiously endowed with intelligence and speech, this pirate ship will serve as a base of operations to rest and prepare before choosing its next destination among the islands of the Lost Caribbean archipelago. Once on deck, not only will we be able to get to know the skulls that make up the crew better, but also embark on optional missions to learn more about the past and the motivations of each of these lost souls.
Whether Desperados III had a strong taste of “Shadow Tactics among cowboys”, the changes are going to be much more obvious in this new production. The choice of the order of the missions is only one example of what will differentiate Shadow Gambit of Mimimi’s previous tactical excursions. The player will first compose his own team of three with the pirates of his choice and will find himself in a sandbox where everything seems to encourage experimentation. The German team guarantees “unprecedented depth of gameplay mechanics through fantasy and magic“while the studio’s previous tactical games were limited by a certain realism (with the exception of Isabelle Moreau’s crazy voodoo powers in Desperados III). More choice and freedom, therefore, to make their own way and impose their style of play, but also more largesse for those who like to put a little action in their infiltration. You can even choose your entry and exit point for each island at the start of a mission. Nice.
TOKI WO TOMARE
When the Mimimi team tells us that Shadow Gambit invites experimentation, these are not just words. The Red Marley has indeed a powerful magic of time manipulation, which is reflected in particular by the ability to suspend time to study its strategic options and create “an action queue” with his characters. In fact, the enemies will sometimes be positioned in such a way that it will be good to plan his plan of attack by programming the actions of several characters at the same time. At your signal, time resumes its course and the three ghost pirates carry out the instructions at the same time. If you are more instinctive in planning and this is starting to scare you a little, tell yourself that the game is supposed to be finished by eliminating the guards one by one. 1. Guards whose cone of vision and hearing will be distinctly seen.
And then there is this little detail that could well make Shadow Gambit more interesting than the average for those who fear not having a sharp enough tactical sense. Always thanks to the pretext of the boat which controls time, the player can create a kind of checkpoint at any time and return to the past to try to correct his error. If this feature seems very generous, Mimimi believes that Shadow Gambit will not be easier or shorter than its previous titles. “We want you to feel the jubilation of experimenting and trial and error before you managed to put together a flawless attack“, says Mmimi.”Shadow Gambit is not trying to push you towards the solution we have provided. We offer you a variety of tools to develop your own strategies using the time manipulation powers of the Red Marley and the magical abilities of your cursed pirate crew.“
During the remote presentation that took place on Thursday January 19, Mimim representatives confirmed to us that the budget for Shadow Gambit is little more important than those of his previous games, in particular due to the increase in the salaries of the team, but that the experience allows him to make smarter design choices to optimize costs. As for the external investments from which the studio benefited to compensate for the absence of a publisher, in particular that of Kowloon Knights, they have no influence on the content of the game. The founders of the studio also explained that there is a strong demand from the community for additional content. No announcements to make at this time, but contrary to Shadow Tacticswe guess that it will not be necessary to wait 4 years to be entitled to the rab, this time.
Dubbed in English and German, Shadow Gambit will be localized into English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish and Japanese.
