Desperados III

Desperados III is a 2020 real-time stealth tactics game from Mimimi, the studio of Shadow Tactics. It is a prequel to the first Desperados, following a younger John Cooper and the gang he gathers: Doc McCoy, Hector, Kate and Isabelle, a woman with powers that link people's minds.

It plays like Shadow Tactics: large maps, guards with sight cones, characters with distinct skills controlled in real time, and a Showdown mode that pauses the game so you can plan one action for each character and launch them together.

It is the most polished game in the genre: its maps are huge and varied, its characters combine in clever ways, and its story is well told. Many consider it the best real-time tactics game of its decade.

It is long and hard, and like all the genre's games it rewards frequent saving.

Desperados III is Commandos' formula at its most refined: specialists, sight lines, puzzle maps and a way to pause and coordinate. Its Showdown mode is the modern form of the pause that the genre first had in Desperados' Quick Action.