HomeFeaturesShadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew
After 7 hours, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew might be Mimimi’s most joyful stealth strategy game yetIt’s a pirate’s life for me
It’s a pirate’s life for me
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Mimimi Games
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Mimimi Games
Ahead of thelaunch of its Steam Next Fest demo next week, I’ve been playing a substantial early build of Mimimi Games' latest stealth strategy game,Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. After delighting us with Edo-period Japan inShadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogunand the rootin' tootin' tales of the Wild West inDesperados 3, Mimimi have taken a firm step outside their comfort zone with the high seas island-hopping of Shadow Gambit, offering up an altogether different approach to their tried and tested stealth antics.
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew - Release Date TrailerWatch on YouTube
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew - Release Date Trailer
As you may have seen from yesterday’s new trailer at the PC Gaming Show, Afia’s arch nemesis is an Inquisitor called Ignacia, and you’ll be dispatching her goons all across the archipelago as you attempt to liberate your home from their puritanical yoke. Afia has history with the Red Marley, you see, and she’s determined to solve the riddle of its former owner, the legendary pirate Moredechai. To do this, she’ll need to rebuild Moredechai’s old crew, resurrecting them with mysterious Black Pearls (which are, of course, in the possession of the Inquisition), and finding a wealth of magical artefacts (also in the hands of the Inquisition) in order to help decipher it.
Accumulating these two things will form the backdrop of Shadow Gambit’s first act, and you’ll be visiting its clutch of islands multiple times to stock up on them. At first glance, these objectives may come as something of a disappointment. They certainly aren’t as playful as, say, rounding up your gang of exceedingly drunk cowboys after a heavy night out to defend a ranch in Desperados 3, for example, but the freedom both your crew and your point of entry on these islands goes a surprisingly long way in helping to restore any perceived lack of fun and creativity.
Afia herself feels like the distant cousin of Corvo and Emily Kaldwin fromDishonored, her ability to stab foes with her dagger and blink dash across spaces unseen making her the perfect introduction to this world of nefarious swashbuckling. She can also freeze time for short periods, forcing guards to stop in their tracks so her crewmates can either run through their sight cones without them raising the alarm, or take down one of their pals right in front of them - if they’re quick, that is.
She was a key member of my early missions in Shadow Gambit, but I quickly came to favour skeleton chef pirate Toya and sharpshooter Teresa as well. Toya can plant Japanese katashiro markers on guards or points on the ground, allowing him to instantly teleport to (and attack) those locations from anywhere on the map. He also has a handy (and wide-ranging) flute whistle to distract guards to tempt them off their patrol routes, and his cookery-flavoured voice quips make him an exceedingly good hang while you’re filleting your latest acolyte and dumping them in a bush.
Ah yes, the classic rock fall. It wouldn’t be a Mimimi game without one. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Mimimi Games
Teresa, meanwhile, is your classic sniper of the gang, able to pick off guards from afar as long as she has a clear line of sight. She’ll need to retrieve that deadly crossbow dart before she can strike again, however, so you’ll need to deploy her talents carefully in order to make the most of her. She can fire crossbow darts that blind enemies as well, decimating their sight cones while the rest of your gang slip through the cracks in their vision. Not bad considering she herself doesn’t actually have any eyes.
Witch doctor Suleidy has plenty to recommend her as well, especially her ability to conjure up cover bushes on the fly to keep your crew hidden from view. The spirited Pinkus Von Presswald, meanwhile, is the spy of the group. He’s able to possess low-level guards and use their soulless husks to chat and distract their colleagues, and he also has a very Cooper-style coin toss (being a rich, pompous sod), albeit with a shorter range of effect than Toya’s whistle.
Alas, the preview build stopped short of letting me try the anchor-wielding John Mercury and canonist Gaelle Le Bris from the reveal trailer, and there’s also skelly fisherman Quentin Aalbers waiting in the wings as well. But even with only five of its eventual eight characters to sample here, I found each and every combo I tried worked an absolute treat, offering up plenty of ways to solve its deviously designed puzzle box locations, and all without feeling like I was repeating the same strategies or just going through the motions with different crew mates.
If you keep zooming the camera out, you transition into a bird’s eye view of the entire island, complete with objective markers and patrol routes for every Inquisition guard. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Mimimi Games
There’s a lot more I could say about Shadow Gambit. There’s an open air library on one island that’s a particular delight for team aerial takedowns, as is the prison fortress that hugs the crater of a magical volcano. Carefully placed rocks and cranes also make the mind wander, and while not all members of your crew are able to swim in the shallows, the ones that can are able to pop up like sharks to snuff out wayward guards on lonely docks and spits of sand. Each island is a veritable playground of possibility in Shadow Gambit, and the thought of having only sampled a couple of them with just over half of its final crew to hand just makes me even more eager to see what other treasures are lying in wait in the final game.
So if you were at all worried that Mimimi might have bitten off more than they could chew with Shadow Gambit, you can set your mind at ease. The Cursed Crew is looking pretty ship shape right now, and you should absolutely try out the Next Fest demo for yourself when it launches on Steam next week, on June 19th. You should also mark your calendars for its full release while you’re at it, too. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is coming toSteamand theEpic Games Storeon August 17th.
