#shadow gambit

The venerable Iudex🏴‍☠️💓

Developed & Published by Mimimi Games

Release Date 2023

Tested on PC (16 GB RAM, Ryzen 7 7735, RTX 4060)

MSRP 39,99 USD

Do game genres live and die? Do they go through a ‘renaissance’ and never see their good ol’ glorious days, ever? Well, real-time stealth strategy genre is not that ‘alive’ these days, it is sad to see and acknowledge that AAA games pump up gamers for non-stop action so much that if a player does not feel ‘entertained’ for a short span just watching the trailer, the game does not ‘appeal’ to them anymore. Shadow Gambit presents a flawless real-time stealth experience here and it will be last of its kind as it stands, since Mimimi Games announced that the studio will be shut down in December 2023, just two weeks after the release. And the studio is defunct at the time of writing this review. The industry lost a valuable team with great skills. Let this be an ode to them. Ahoy! Set your sails!

Shadow Gambit, in a nutshell, is a real-time stealth and strategy game set in alternate history in fictionalised Lost Caribbean, where we play as resurrected crew members of a magical ship named Red Marley. The first character we play as is Afia, she is a ragtag pirate whose chest is penetrated by a sword. Our goal as a crew is to steal magical artefacts and eliminate all the Inquisition members along the way in numerous islands. The game has a great pace in terms of introducing new crew members as well. Since each crew member has unique abilities and skillset, you want to make sure you are utilizing them to the max, for example some characters can swim, some of them can climb up vines. When it comes to active abilities, Afia, the starting character, can instantly teleport to a nearby location and stab an enemy, freeze an enemy temporarily. Another character is like a sharpshooter with her sniper that can take out enemies from afar, and blind enemies with smoke. The game makes sure that you get familiar with newly-unlocked character’s abilities, you are directly taken to an area where the game teaches you abilities in a tutorial. As you progress, the islands get bigger and more complex, therefore you have to strategize your approach and select your crew accordingly. 

Now, let’s meet Red Marley. She is sort of the soul of the ship, more like ‘essence of it’, she is not the owner of it. There are more souls besides her, and she acts like a captain of the ship that acts like a vessel of the ship’s identity. We get to interact with her all the time on the ship and she is the one who bestows us with a fantastic present, the ability to wind time, a subject I’ll get back to later.

If I said that each and every island felt extremely unique and the atmosphere they have are all exquisite, it would be an understatement. Not only islands themselves are unique, but they include different themes and atmospheres within them. Let’s take a look the video below where you can see this island has totally different vibes, some areas are more dark and gritty, the areas covering it are much more alive and teeming with colours objects, buildings and plants, also you get this much rocky areas and flat ones. All this world-building is so well-designed and well-thought that I am just amazed, you have so many possible crew-combo and your approach. 

You get to choose your landing spot as well, this also adds additional depth to the experience because you’re always figuring out for which spot your crew are most equipped to.

The gameplay is focused on real-time stealth and constantly considering your next move, yet you have more options, firstly, you can always freeze the game and and give commands to characters and execute them simultaneously, especially when you’re making moves with multiple characters at the same time, one character taking an enemy, another throwing a smoke bomb and stun, and the other one distracting an enemy so he does not alarm other members of the Inquisition. On top of this, Red Marley presents you the ability to rewind time, which is quick-save. Thanks to this ability, you can always quick-save the game whenever you wish to do so, and can rewind the time to any moment of that level. Since you can quick-save as much as you want, you have complete freedom to try out an approach and if you fail, just rewind time and try your luck in a different way. With this feature, the game never feels “punishing”, you know that if you cannot clear a room of enemies then you must be doing something wrong such as timing, not utilising all of your unique abilities or positioning. 

As you unlock new islands you are presented with an intro video for them which is pretty neat because you walkthrough the island in the video and can take a look at the landmarks and see the island’s size and general locations, each intro video is produced with utmost care and own narration.

Lastly, I’d like share a 5-minute long opening video, where I am trying to come up with an approach so as to how to initiate a fight right at the beginning and work my path along the way, trying to make use of character abilities as much as I can.

Phewww… After numerous delays, two long let's play breaks and almost a year, I've finally finished Shadow Gambit!

And what an amazing experience it was! I kinda wish I would've had the mind to enjoy it more at certain times, but as usual for Mimimi Games, the gameplay, story, and characters are all top-notch.

Mimimi really perfected their tried and tested stealth strategy formula with this one, and thanks to the new fantastical setting, they got quite creative with game design and character skills. It does feel quite different if you come from one of their previous games, but in a refreshing way - you now have the freedom to recruit characters and tackle missions in whatever order you want (save for some scripted story events), and the ship serves as a sort of "hub" in between missions.

Actually, the gameplay even plays into the story! I always think it's really awesome if gameplay and story are so deeply interwoven that one enhances the other, and Mimimi not only designed a twist that turns their core gameplay mechanic on it's head, they also managed to send a message with it that I think is really relevant and valuable (especially for me after what I've been through in the past year).

The overall tone is a little different in comparison to other Mimimi titles - though the story does have its serious moments, there's a lot of humor intermingled in between. Nevertheless, the dialogue is very witty and actually gave me a good laugh quite a few times, so it's great if you're looking for a little more lighthearted experience.

The characters are also a lot more comical and quirky, but in a charming way - one big difference is that due to the game's "free player's choice" approach, there aren't that many interpersonal interactions between the characters, save for the few in the crew tales you can do between missions on the ship that tend to be a little more on the humorous side. (In previous Mimimi titles, character development usually happened during dialogues on the missions; however, since there is little scripted story dialogue for the individual crew members, this is largely omitted.)

While the focus was rather evenly split between the smaller cast of characters in past Mimimi titles, the main story of Shadow Gambit is a lot more focused on Afia. This doesn't diminish the narrative in any way as Afia is a great character and absolutely carries the story, but the greater cast of characters does result in less unique dialogue for the crew members overall.

But not to worry: Every crew member gets their own personal mission! This is where the characters really shine, and the missions do so much to flesh out their development and backstories. (In essence, they're comparable to the loyalty missions of Mass Effect 2.)

Also, it would be a disservice not to mention just how gorgeous the environments look. Every last detail, from the scenic tropical beaches, to the waves that look like you can cannonball right into them, to the shady lighting in the shanty towns at nighttime absolutely sells you that Caribbean pirates feel.

Last but not least, you just gotta praise Filippo Beck Peccoz for composing yet another banger soundtrack - IMO, the guy is seriously one of the most underrated composers in the gaming industry, and he always perfectly captures the vibes of whatever he's composing for. (One of the reasons why I picked up Shadow Tactics back in the day is because the title screen theme absolutely floored me; similarly, the title theme of Shadow Gambit also was the first thing that really sold the game to me.)

In terms of audio, I also appreciate that the game has a really high-quality German dub! It's not something you see too often, especially the "high-quality" part - I did spot some typos and text errors in the German version, but considering the overall quality of the game, this is really negligible.

The two DLCs are also absolutely worth it if you intend to buy them, though they are a little more buggy in some places than the base game. (Since Mimimi dissolved right after the DLCs' release, there probably wasn't that much time left for clean-up.) Yuki's Wish specifically is a real treat for Shadow Tactics fans (like me xD), and Zagan's Ritual is also very interesting from a lore perspective (or if you are into "controlled mad scientist" characters xD).

All in all, I would say Shadow Gambit rightfully deserves the label "masterpiece" - it's just a shame that it didn't attract too much attention. I'd say part of this is because of the "unfortunate" circumstance that there were so many great game releases in 2023 (similar to how Lies of P got a bit overshadowed by Baldur's Gate 3 as an RPG), but I still maintain that it's an absolute crime that Shadow Gambit wasn't even nominated for Best Sim/Strategy Game at The Game Awards 2023 - and now that I've played it myself, I want to say that it shouldn't only have been nominated, it should've won.

But ultimately, this is just a sad confirmation of the reasons why Mimimi Games had to close their doors: The effort and expense they put into their games were just out of proportion with the revenues they received from them. Yes, they catered to a very niche genre, and yes, they could've tried producing games for more "popular" genres, but would that really have been for the better? I have seen so. many. games that tried to bite off more than they could chew and ended up being unable to achieve the goals they had set for themselves. Thus, I respected Mimimi Games all the more for their approach of "We do what we can and aim to realize it in the best way possible", while also continuously experimenting and modifying their formula.

Personally, I'd say that with Mimimi Games, not only Germany but the gaming industry as a whole has lost one of their best model studios, a loss that I will probably mourn forever. Nevertheless, I have full respect and understanding for their decision. (Though I still hate how everything has to be mainstream because that's the only way to make money... -_-)

Anyway, this game - as basically everything by Mimimi Games - comes with my highest recommendations. If you like RTS, if you like pirates - or heck, both - I can only advise you to check out Shadow Gambit.