Cor, there's been a lot of games this year, haven't there? While I've only slapped one Bestest Best badge down in 2023 (woe is me), our lovely freelancers, current RPSers, and former RPSers have done a whole lot more badge-slapping. A grand total of 26 Bestest Bests have graced our monitors this year, which makes it three more than last year's Bestest Best round-up. And I'd say it's a nice mixture of big budget open worlders, puzzle gems, and indie delights that make up our roster for 2023, too.
So yeah, I'd encourage you to have a flick through the list below and see if there's anything you can add to the wishlist. Even as the person with "Reviews" in their job title, I can confirm I literally have loads of these Bestest Bests in my backlog. I will endeavour to play a handful over this Christmas break on my Steam Deck, maybe combining the experience with a nibble on a mince pie. Anyway, enjoy! And Merry Reviewsmas!
]]>At last, every door on the RPS Advent Calendar has been ripped open, leaving nothing but foil wrapper remnants, and the odd pixel crumb of the digital delights once contained within them. But that doesn't festivities are over! Like a Boxing Day bubble and squeak, we've gathered together all of our favourite games of the year once again, this time in one handy location. If you've been following along with our Advent goings-on, you'll already know what our game of the year picks are for 2023, but just in case you missed them, here's the list in full. Enjoy!
]]>We've reached another day on our Advent Calendar, shipmates! Yo ho ho and a bottle of stealth!
]]>Stealth tactics 'em up Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is an "all-time treasure", according to Katharine's review, and it has to be given that developers Mimimi announced their closure almost immediately after its release.
This might help extend its life closer towards eternity: as a "very final parting gift", Mimimi have released a modding tool that lets players create their own missions and stories.
]]>Pour one out for Mimimi Games today, readers. Despite announcing they were shutting up shop following the release of this year's fantastic Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, today marks the grand finale for their stealth strategy masterpiece in the form of a new free Treasure Hunt update, and the release of their two paid expansions. Each brings a brand-new pirate to The Red Marley's undead crew, as well as their own half-dozen story missions to play through spread across islands old and new, and once you've begun each of their respective questlines, they're readily available to play in any of the game's regular plunderings, too.
Mimimi have kept the identity of these pirates a secret until now, but after playing both DLCs for a big chunk of the last week, I'm confident in saying this is exactly the swansong Shadow Gambit deserves - with one of the expansions in particular bringing a poignant touch of coming full circle on Mimimi's work as a studio. Naturally, spoilers circle these waters like hungry sharks, but if you're resigned to such a fate, let's dive in below.
]]>Mimimi Games have announced two chunky Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew DLC expansions - the German strategy game studio's final releases, before they close their doors for good. Both are down to launch on 6th December, and will add "several hours" of stuff to the sneaky sea-dog simulator.
]]>Sad news, folks. Munich, Germany-based independent developer Mimimi Games have announced that they're closing doors following the release of Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, which RPS only recently described as the studio's best work yet. The developer plan to support Shadow Gambit with patches and additions, but are otherwise ceasing development and will "slowly ramp down" in the coming months. Founders Dominik Abé and Johannes Roth are even now trying to relocate the studio's few dozen employees, who will be paid a bonus taken from Shadow Gambit profits to ease the transition.
]]>Winding back the clock to rewrite past mistakes is a core stratagem of any Mimimi game. Baldur's Gate 3 might have rekindled the debate about save-scumming over in RPG circles, but in the stealth strategy arena where Mimimi operate, reaching for the F5 and F8 keys to quick load a previous save is as natural as swapping between your party members on 123, or activating their unique abilities to clobber all manner of unsuspecting guards on the back of the head with ASD and F.
In their latest real-time tactics-me-do Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, however, the act of quick saving has been woven directly into the language of the game, presented not as cold, hard button commands, but as 'captured memories' that your magical ghost ship The Red Marley is able to unleash to make sure your supernatural pirate crew don't get caught or die (again) on the job.
]]>Ever since the makers of Desperados 3 and Shadow Tactics announced their brand new squad tactics game, I've been dying to get my hands on Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. While Mimimi's previous games took place in mostly grounded historical settings, Shadow Gambit is about magical undead pirates hunting for mysterious booty and fighting a persecutive Inquisition. This shift into the supernatural is quite the change for Mimimi, which creative director Dominik Abé tells me was partly to challenge themselves as designers, but also so players could have a bit more fun with how they approached its plentiful stealth encounters.
"One thing we wanted for sure was that we had something that's not grounded in a realistic setting," Abé tells me. "That was a requirement for all the pitches we did internally, and that's because we wanted to improve on the gameplay. We were restricted by realism, so that was a core pillar. It had to be something fantasy, or sci-fi or something non-realistic."
]]>Just in case your Steam wishlists weren't already stocked up from this year's Summer Geoff Fest bonanza, here we are with another edition of Valve's Steam Next Fest, which has unleashed hundreds, if not thousands of free game demos on us, starting from today, June 19th, until Monday June 26th. You can view the entire June Next Fest line-up right here if you'd rather browse at your leisure, but we've also been playing some of the demos in advance to bring you some curated highlights of what we've enjoyed so far. We haven't have access to every demo in this year's Next Fest, I should note, but think of these more as some initial tasting suggestions to get you started, rather than a complete overview of what's worth playing.
]]>Ahead of the launch of its Steam Next Fest demo next week, I've been playing a substantial early build of Mimimi Games' latest stealth strategy game, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. After delighting us with Edo-period Japan in Shadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogun and the rootin' tootin' tales of the Wild West in Desperados 3, Mimimi have taken a firm step outside their comfort zone with the high seas island-hopping of Shadow Gambit, offering up an altogether different approach to their tried and tested stealth antics.
As you might have guessed from the name, its eponymous crew aren't bound by the laws of reality in this latest tactical outing, and their extensive suite of magic abilities really open up the playing field for some creative takedowns. But the canvas on which you're painting these elaborate murders has morphed since the days of Desperados 3, with its handful of islands now offering multiple points of entry, a myriad of different missions and objectives and - for the first time ever - repeat visits to the same locations. It's quite the sea change from Mimimi's previous work, but rest assured: the crown jewels of the Mimimi stealth strategy experience certainly haven't been lost to Davey Jones' locker in the process. If nothing else, this is the most fun I've had with a Mimimi game, period - and I cannot wait to dive back in properly when it launches on August 17th.
]]>When Mimimi Games announced their latest stealth strategy game Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew back in January, I was pretty darn stoked. You can also imagine my excitement when they said it would be out later this year, too. Not in 2024, or several years down the line, but in the next 12 months. Absolutely my favourite thing in the world, reveals like that. Can't get enough of them. So picture how I must be feeling right now, having just heard Shadow Gambit's actual release date at tonight's PC Gaming Show. Time to mark your calendars, folks. We'll be stealth murdering our way around its Lost Caribbean on August 17th.
]]>Mimimi Games, the developers of upcoming supernatural pirate stealth-strategy Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, have warned that they're being "targeted by a phishing campaign." Apparently some nefarious party is sending out emails with a link to a website that looks nearly identical to the official Shadow Gambit site with the promise of beta access. Mimimi say that the email is not from them and that there is no beta.
]]>Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is the upcoming game from the makers of Desperados 3 and Shadow Tactics, which is another way of saying it's one of the most exciting games currently in development. Mimimi recently released a new "developer insight" video which introduces more of the magic pirate sneak 'em up's systems, world, and playable characters.
]]>Mimimi Games have been teasing their next stealth strategy game for over two years now, and finally, we know what it is. Today, the makers of Desperados 3 and Shadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogun revealed that the game formerly known as Codename: Sweet Potato (or Süßkartoffel, in their native German) is now called Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, and it's all about undead magical pirates. Sign me the heck up.
I got to see Shadow Gambit in action late last week, and boy howdy it looks super cool. Even better, it's coming to Steam and the Epic Games Store later this year. Read on below to watch its pair of exciting reveal trailers, and find out all about it.
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