Desperados 3 Is a Strong Candidate for the Best Strategy Game of 2020

My experience with first part of Desperados, that was released 20 years ago, can be described as love at first sight – I enjoyed it even more than Commandos. Wanted Dead or Alive, because that was the subtitle of the first installment, enchanted me with beautiful maps, a few unique mechanics and dense atmosphere of the Wild West. Even today it's a pretty playable title (although the story and action could unravel a bit faster). Fortunately, these types of games don't become outdated like video games of other genres.

Recently, I spent a few hours with the upcoming third installment of the series and I had a great time – even better than with the first part of the franchise. Desperados 3 already promised to be great at the time of the announcement, but now I'm pretty sure that the game has a good chance to beat Shadow Tactics (which was released three years ago) and fight for the throne of top 2020 strategy games.

The good, the bad and the fast

If you don't know what Desperados is, then the shortest answer is Commandos set in the Wild West. And if you have no idea what Commandos is, then let me explain – it's a real-time strategy with logical puzzles and lots of sneaking around. Yeah, it's a weird mix, but it's extremely playable! In all games of this kind you are in command of a small squad of soldiers or other cowboys, and your typical objective is to infiltrate some locations and reach a specific destination without being noticed. On your way, you usually have to free or kill someone. To do this, you have to figure out the movement patterns of the enemy patrols and the range of sight of guards. Then, you have to eliminate enemies one by one – in such a way, that nobody notices anything. This search for one, vulnerable enemy, that can be silently stunned or killed can be considered as the aforementioned sneaking around element – after getting rid of one opponent, we can wipe out other enemy forces.

In Desperados 3 we will once again meet John Cooper, the hero of the first part of the series. The game designers have decided to step back in time and start the action of the story before the events known from the first installment – technically speaking it is a prequel, but the developers also consider it as a reboot the series. It's a good decision, because apart from older gamers, hardly anyone still remembers the stories depicted in the previous parts of the franchise – the plot was never their strongest point. Wanted Dead or Alive captivated me mainly with its atmosphere and great gameplay mechanisms – the in-game story didn't feature anything out of ordinary.

During the first few missions in D3 John Cooper meets his companions, and of course we learn the basic rules of the game. Stranger, who played this demo for a few hours with me, correctly indicated that these tutorials are a bit long – especially if you have played the previous parts or Shadow Tactics. Every player can learn how everything works and find out that some enemies don't abandon their post (do you remember the guards in straw hats?). However, all these pieces of information are not that necessary.

High Noon

Yes, that's it, if you played Shadow Tactics, then you'll feel like Arthur Morgan riding a horse while playing new Desperados. Although the team is new, they use revolvers efficiently, and each team member has a set of unique skills, but you'll get used to them in no time at all – many abilities are versatile (throwing knife, whistling or bear trap) and useful during the gameplay. The developers didn't forget about the charming pet, which can distract enemies for a while – this time it's less exotic, because it's just an ordinary cat. But even if you've never played this kind of game, it's not a problem – because it's one of those type of strategies that doesn't have a steep learning curve and you can understand main game mechanics in just a few minutes. And that's a huge advantage!

Every mission provides lots of fun as it can be considered as a great puzzle full of different mysteries – it's a hallmark of this type of games. In order to complete an objective, for example, to poison an unaware enemy, you must first plan your route and then scrupulously and consistently get rid of enemies that stand in your way. Unfortunately, I still have flashbacks from years ago, when I had to display a monkey's dexterity during the execution of this elaborate plan, because there was only one path that allowed me to eliminate several enemies at once – and that was very annoying. The small gap of time during which you had an opportunity to kill a few enemies was extremely short, and even if you were just a fraction of a second late then you could screw it up. In the first part we were able to plan the movements and actions of individual characters, but this feature worked quite clumsily.

One of the greatest advantages of Shadow Tactics was the Shadow Mode, which allowed you to easily plan the actions of all heroes at the same time, and then launch them at a convenient moment – but it wasn't perfect either. The creators realized where was the problem, because Desperados 3 is much better in this respect. First of all, activation of the new shadow mode stops time, so we can take a look at the situation and find the best solution – even if our character isn't hiding in the bushes. You can plan a few next actions of a particular hero. In Shadow Tactics, after killing a few guards at once you had to click the mouse button with a speed of light to hide their bodies before the enemy patrol could arrive – in Desperados 3 you can just plan such a move in advance. Less amount of unnecessary clicking and more tactical fun – I like it!

For a few dollars more

Desperados 3 will be a huge video game. The developers say it'll take you from 25 to 35 hours to complete the game. I've already spent more than five hours on playing the demo which contained six playable missions, but if I wanted to max them out, then I would have to take a few days off. For many players, completing the mission will be just the beginning – to earn all the badges, you have to replay a mission several times. For example, some challenges force you to avoid bushes or even not to kill anyone. This is an exact copy of a solution used in Shadow Tactics – that's good, because why change something that worked great and encouraged more hardcore players to solve difficult problems?

A very nice novelty is the visual summary of the entire mission. After completing a mission, a map of our characters' movements is being displayed – you can check the places and moments when you saved your game or study the full routes of characters. It's obviously a minor feature, but this short summary of all your struggles and actions carried out during the mission is a very satisfying and pleasant form of a reward. Speaking about maps, I was thrilled with what I saw in the demo. The Town of Flagstone, which is the backdrop of the first major mission, looks very impressive – the streets are full of residents, among whom we can move around freely. Each of the six different areas I visited was full of detail – and not only in terms of graphics. The most important thing is that there was no shortage of interactive objects or items which can be used to complete a particular goal – is there anything more exciting than dropping a church bell onto an unaware antagonist?

The most controversial changes, which probably won't appeal to everyone, are the powerful spells of voodoo shaman. Isabelle Moreau, who joins us in the foggy marshes of Louisiana, has some powerful abilities at her disposal – two of her skills are literally spells. By using a poisoned arrow she can connect two opponents with each other – both enemies will receive the same amount of damage even if only one enemy was attacked. So if we stab the first one with a knife, the second one will magically die in the exact same way. Isabelle can also take control of one enemy for a moment – then we can attack his comrades without triggering an alarm. Both of these powers are quite strong and both look extraordinary in the realistic setting of the series. The latter aspect didn't bother me, I usually prefer decent game mechanics over world cohesion, but if I had a choice, I wouldn't use them in battle. I assume that the creators wanted to add something new to the series that we haven't seen in this type of games yet – and they managed to implement it. The question is, was it necessary to make such a compromise?

Apart from these changes, Desperados 3 is a great strategy game that offers even more content than the fantastic Shadow Tactics. There are similar types of enemies. There are swamps where heroes leave footprints that may alert the nearby enemies. You have abilities to wear a disguise and distract your enemies (for example, by whistling). Also, you have to hide in safe spots or bushes and snipers have a limited number of bullets. And this is excellent news, because instead of unnecessarily revolutionizing things that worked well, the developers simply expanded all mechanics, added more content and improved the proven formula.

Bonanza

After playing Desperados 3 for a few hours I already know that I will reach for the full version – actually, I knew that before I've launched the game, but not everyone has the same sentiment for this series as me. Of course, the game has some disadvantages or flaws – the most disturbing were the lengthy dialogues, which didn't allow me to get engaged with the story. I had no problem with that in Shadow Tactics, so maybe the blame here lies in the fact that the demo also offered various missions from the later parts of the game? I don't know. The other thing is the fact that I don't play these games for a story. Not everyone will like the supernatural skills of Isabelle. Even despite that, I am convinced that in the end these details won't have such a significant impact on our perception and general acclaim of the game. It's worth to wait for it folks, because a brilliant strategy game is in the works!