Play it before it leaves the catalog
Desperados III, play it now: it is on its way out
- Critic score
- 84
- Player rating
- 4.3/5
- Main story
- 26.8 h
- Genre
- Strategy, Action
A real-time tactics game set in a merciless Wild West, where every ambush is a puzzle to dismantle. It is flagged as leaving the catalog soon, so the time is now.
Desperados III is not a strategy game where you command an army. You control five characters, no more, against dozens of enemies who spot you within seconds if you are seen. Direct confrontation is almost always a loss.
Every mission is therefore built as a puzzle. You study the guards' vision cones, their patrol routes, the moments when two of them turn their backs on each other. Then you exploit your team's specialities: the gunslinger who drops two targets with a single shot, the woman who distracts a guard long enough for someone else to knock him out, the trapper and his bear trap, the old doctor and his poisoned case.
The tool that makes all this playable is Showdown mode: it freezes the action so you can plan several simultaneous moves, then trigger them at once. Neutralising three guards at exactly the same instant, because none of them can be taken down alone without the others seeing, is a sensation few games provide.
The story follows a mismatched band across 1870s America and Mexico, chasing a common enemy. Mostly it does its job: giving a pretext and a tone to very large missions, often replayable in radically different ways.
Expect close to thirty hours for the campaign. The game appears in the PlayStation Store's “last chance to play” category, which means it will leave the catalog soon — Sony does not publish the exact date. If the genre appeals to you, do not put it off.