Replayability is a key attribute here too. This is not a complaint – the levels are huge with many ways to complete them. The first chapter really takes you through this as a tutorial, but the levels are long – brilliantly showcasing the dexterity and variety in the game – the final level in the first chapter took me over an hour. Gunshots are done with holding L1, moving the reticle and releasing to fire, which is possible to be done quickly but it’s real-time stealth, planning strategy game more than anything else. Whilst it is stealth-action, you won’t get into any firefights. Or at least helps you realise that’s basically what it is. That something else turns Desperados into a puzzle game. It works brilliantly and elevates the game to something else. You can also manually activate in real-time, so in another instance, I queued up Kate to throw a blinding vial, and the Doc to snipe while at the same time I ran in as John to finish off a final enemy that was figuring out what happened. In my example above, I paused and planned the Doc to shoot, and John to knife throw at the same time, taking out both enemies. Showdown mode pauses the game (on all but the highest difficulties) and allows you to queue up actions to do them simultaneously. Using Showdown mode, I take them out with the Doctor and John. I work my way around the yard in the same way until I get to the last two who are patrolling as a pair. Climbing up, I ran around the top, jumped down and got Kate in disguise to distract the one who was looking at him. To solve the wooden storage yard problem, I ran in as John avoiding the cones of vision. Typically, they’ll cross over each other, so you find yourself working back to the weak line. Each guard has a moving cone of vision with levels which can detect you depending on if you’re standing or crouching. On this same level, there’s a wooden stockpile yard for construction. She can throw a vial of perfume to blind people, but also distract guards when she’s in disguise mode, and lure them away in a direction temporarily. She can, however, find disguises so the guards cannot detect her. Kate can’t kill anyone, only temporarily knock them out (after which they’re alerted). However, he has to collect his knife after throwing it.

John has a pistol, quick knife attacks, can swim as well as climb and can move bodies quickly. He can kill people slowly with a syringe but has to drag bodies to hide them slowly. The Doc can distract people with his medical bag which blows up to distract them with a gas when they get near. With Kate, the Doctor and John, you need to get the dynamite from one of two locations, back to the bridge to blow it up, and then meet Hector on the train.

Let me give an example.Īn early level has you trying to get some dynamite to blow up a bridge to spite this gang. Beginning with a continuation of the story, you have a number of objectives to meet, and a combination of the various characters with which to achieve them. Upon meeting his friend, John and Hector are embroiled in a saga with a Wild West gang, as a rag-tag bunch of character assemble as your crew.Įach level plays out like a miniature play-set. With somewhat of an overreaction, John decides to kill everyone to get the train going again (disclaimer: can you play without killing but it’s a lot harder). The story begins with you as John Cooper on a train to meet your friend, and it’s hijacked by bandits. The good news – they pretty much have.ĭesperados 3 plays from an isometric point of view, where you control a number of characters in real-time. Not in the plot, but the developers said they felt like they pretty much nailed the ‘stealth strategy genre’ with that game, but Desperados 3 was their opportunity to perfect it. If anything, it’s a sequel to 2016’s Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun.

A cowboy stealth action game? You had me at ‘cowboy stealth action’.ĭesperados 3 is the follow up to, err, Desperados 2 but it’s a prequel, so you don’t need to know anything at all about what happened – helpful since number 2 was released in 2006.

Desperados 3 chapters list