Shadow Company: Left for Dead

Shadow Company is a 1999 real-time tactics game developed by Sinister Games and published by Ubi Soft. It begins with a three-man team left for dead by its employer after an operation in Angola. From there you build a mercenary company and take nine missions around the world: infiltration, demolition, assassination.

It is in 3D with a movable camera, and you control the squad in real time, with objectives that reward stealth as well as firepower. Mercenaries are hired, equipped and developed between missions.

It is a forgotten bridge between Commandos and Jagged Alliance: real-time missions in the Commandos style with a mercenary company around them. Reviewers at the time liked it for its blend of action and planning.

It is short and its 3D has aged badly. It is a curiosity for players who want to see what else was tried at the end of the 1990s.

Shadow Company takes Commandos' real-time stealth missions and gives them a mercenary company to pay for, like Jagged Alliance 2. It never had the polish of either, but it shows how close the two ideas were in 1999.