Desperados III

Desperados III is a tactical stealth game with five playable characters in the Wild West. In each mission, you watch patrols, combine abilities and prepare several actions before you strike.

The game tells the backstory of Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive. It centres on John Cooper, who gains allies against the DeVitt Company on his journey.

Desperados III was released on June 16, 2020 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. On PC, support for macOS and Linux was added in September 2020.

The three additional story missions of the series, Money for the Vultures, followed between September and November 2020.

Desperados III was released for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. The PC version supports Windows, macOS and Linux. On Xbox Series X|S the game is playable via Smart Delivery with a version optimised for consoles. A standalone PlayStation 5 version has not been announced.

The tactics game is designed for single players and does not offer a co-op campaign.

The camera shows the environment from an isometric perspective. You analyse lines of sight and movement routes, hide in cover and take out guards silently. Missions allow different approaches, including distractions, bypassing enemies and open firefights with higher risk.

Showdown mode pauses the action so you can plan the actions of different characters and then trigger them together. Difficulty settings and extra mission challenges make repeat playthroughs worthwhile.

Money for the Vultures adds three interconnected missions after the end of the main story. Late to the Party was released on Sep 2, 2020, Five Steps Ahead on Oct 6 and Once More With Feeling on Nov 3.

The story takes Cooper's crew in search of hidden riches and finally back to Eagle's Nest fortress. All three chapters are part of the Season Pass and also available separately.

On Windows, the game requires at least a dual-core processor at 3.0 GHz, 8 GB RAM, a GeForce GTX 560 or Radeon HD 5850 with 2 GB graphics memory and 20 GB of free storage space.

A quad-core processor at 3.0 GHz, 12 GB RAM and a GeForce GTX 760 or Radeon HD 7870 are recommended. An SSD can shorten loading times.

John Cooper fights with a knife and revolvers. Doc McCoy uses decoys, knockout gas and a sniper pistol, among other things. Hector specialises in brute force, traps and melee combat. Kate uses disguises to distract enemies, while Isabelle manipulates enemy groups with unusual abilities.

Many obstacles can only be overcome particularly efficiently when two or more characters work together. The choice of party therefore changes how a mission plays out.

In Showdown mode you set orders for several characters and have them carried out at the same moment. This lets two guards be taken out at once, or a distraction and an ambush be coordinated.

The mode does not replace observing your surroundings: lines of sight, sounds and the position of characters still determine whether a plan works.

The campaign takes you through border towns, swamps, river landscapes and other locations in the American West. Each map combines fixed guard positions with patrols, chokepoints, height differences and several routes to the objective.

Optional challenges reward unusual solutions, such as using different character combinations or forgoing certain tools. The free Baron's Challenges expand the main game with modified tasks in familiar environments.

The free Bounty mode lets you choose different party members for most main missions. This creates new combinations of special abilities.

With the level editing cheats you can reshape existing locations, place enemies and items, and share the resulting situations via save states. This is not a full map editor.

Desperados III supports mouse and keyboard as well as controller on PC. Precise positioning of characters, frequent saving and coordinating actions are central to the gameplay.

Alternative routes, non-lethal solutions and extra challenges invite you to replay completed missions with different strategies.

Desperados III offers German on-screen text on Steam. The game combines spoken dialogue and cutscenes with a freely rotatable view of the tactical locations. Key settings include several difficulty levels and different control options.