Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a perfect summer season film. The franchise went on to turn into single-mindedly obsessive about its breakout star, Captain Jack Sparrow, however the first film was an agile, calmly spooky swashbuckling journey. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew shares that film’s spirit of goofy haunted slapstick with a coronary heart and actual dramatic stakes, and blends it with an expertly crafted stealth-strategy marketing campaign. All of it comes collectively into one in every of my favourite video games of the 12 months.
Shadow Gambit facilities across the Purple Marley, a residing, speaking ghost ship with an undead crew who’ve fallen to the Inquisition of the Burning Maiden. You play primarily as Afia, as she revives the cursed compatriots one after the other and gathers info on the hidden treasure of the Purple Marley’s captain, Captain Mordechai, who’s conspicuously absent. The seek for Mordechai’s treasure is an intriguing hook that propels the plot ahead and balances nicely in opposition to the customarily eccentric subplots of the person characters.
The crew is distinctly drawn with one-of-a-kind visible attributes and backgrounds that makes discovering every workforce member a pleasure. Afia is completely seen with a spectral sword protruding of her chest, which she attracts to remove enemies. Suleidy seems as if she’s been partially consumed by plant-life. Pinkus is a flowery lad in a powdered wig, whereas Quintin the treasurer carries round his personal golden cranium. For a recreation concerning the undead, the personalities are simply crackling with life and character.
Every crew member has their very own job that matches into the hierarchy of the ship to match as nicely. Pinkus is the quartermaster, making his foppish character part of how he will need to have greased palms when he was alive. Mr. Mercury, the shipwright, is virtually part of the ship itself with an anchor connected to his physique. Afia, as the principle character, is known as the navigator, figuring out the place the Purple Marley goes. She shouldn’t be, nevertheless, named captain–the Marley has its personal agenda, and its personal opinions, and its loyalty to the previous captain, Mordechai, is a serious driving pressure behind the plot. Optionally available Crew Tales assist fill out the workforce’s character with self-contained tales that run the gamut from surprising to surprisingly comedic.
After selecting an island and choosing your workforce of three pirates, you select a touchdown zone and start exploring the well-guarded Inquisition encampments. Missions are targeted totally on stealth and technique, and it’s totally straightforward to get overwhelmed if a guard spots you. Most missions have you ever infiltrating a selected spot by killing or distracting the guards, or eliminating a selected goal. The guards have their very own units of overlapping patrol paths and sight strains, making every new space a cascading puzzle to resolve. There is a degree of persistence and meticulousness to carving a path via the Inquisition forces. Because it takes place principally in real-time, you may spend some time monitoring the guards’ patrols and selecting precisely when to make your transfer, and tips on how to stash the our bodies of your fallen victims earlier than different guards spot them. You may uncover the one tiny opening of their defenses and use that to take out one guard, who was offering the sightline cowl for one more, after which one other, till a whole space lays useless. It is extremely satisfying.
That is partly as a result of the fusions of character traits and ship roles come into even sharper focus within the missions themselves, the place their powers are nicely differentiated. It’s possible you’ll must discover a bush to cover a physique in most circumstances, however if you happen to’ve introduced Suleidy alongside, she will merely toss a seed that instantly grows a bush wherever you would like. One goal could also be distant with tons of enemies in-between, however if you happen to’ve introduced Teresa the sniper, she will take them out with one well-aimed crossbow bolt. Considered one of my favorites was Toya, the ship’s cook dinner and a Japanese pirate, who performs a lot quicker melee executions than the remainder of the crew, and who can teleport instantly to his spirit-sword for an instant-kill.
A few of the powers fall into comparable categories–most of the crew has some skill to distract guards or make them change positions, and the sport will warn you if you happen to attempt to begin a mission composed solely of members with out such a capability. However that consideration apart, the powers and stage design are fantastically versatile, permitting you to finish a mission with basically any mixture of characters. By no means as soon as throughout my playthrough did I discover myself unequipped to resolve a mission with the crew I had introduced. I by no means needed to begin a mission over from scratch.
That stated, you’ll find your self reloading quite a bit. That is as a result of frequent save-states are a core mechanic in Shadow Gambit. The sport encourages you to shortly hit a single button devoted to making a “reminiscence,” and the Marley will even sometimes ring a bell reminding you to save lots of if you have not for some time. This can be a recreation that acknowledges that you’re going to in all probability get noticed or in any other case make errors, quite a bit, and it accommodates that by together with save-scumming as a pure a part of your progression–and even incorporating it into the story itself. Shadow Gambit does warn you if you happen to’re attempting to reload a reminiscence that is very old–which may be barely off-putting if you happen to decide up a suspended recreation in your Steam Deck after a day, as a result of in that case, your whole saves are deemed old–but it is a useful function regardless.
On prime of their personalities and powers, every crew member is constructed barely in a different way for traversal. Some could also be more proficient at swimming to flank on one other aspect of an island, for instance, whereas others can climb vines. It is a lot simpler to get round and discover an angle with some members, which helps steadiness those with extra highly effective and long-range skills. However crucially, you possibly can receive your workforce in any order you would like. Since their corpses are scattered across the ship, you select which of them to revive as you receive the wanted supplies. That provides the primary half of the sport a sure predictability, as you understand you are continuously searching for units of two magical artifacts throughout story missions till you have revived all of them. Nevertheless it additionally helps you construct a workforce that really seems like your individual.
Individually, I realized that appears may be deceiving, since my chosen order did not find yourself aligning with my favorites. I made Pinkus one in every of my very first crewmates, imagining that his skill to take over the minds of enemies would show particularly precious. In follow, Pinkus was one in every of my least favourite, and others that I had saved for final like Quintin turned a few of my go-to crew. Every member will get a brief tutorial to study their skills after they’re revived, however I could have chosen a distinct order if I had gotten a style for every of them earlier than committing to a revival.
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Shadow Gambit does encourage you to rotate everybody, although, as you get better advantages from bringing alongside crew members who have not been on a mission for some time. That vitality can then be used to unlock a single, highly effective improve per crew member. Afia’s teleportation-kill may be upgraded to disregard altitude restrictions, for instance, whereas Pinkus can acquire the power to take over higher-level guards. Even after dozens of hours, I have never gotten almost sufficient vitality to unlock each improve, so that is actually the place it counts to select your favorites.
The phases are expertly crafted to accommodate any mixture of workforce members, which might have run the chance of creating them too samey and repetitive. In follow, although, the issue ramps up properly. Later phases have actually devilish brain-teaser combos of guards and sightlines that examined my skill to select them off one after the other. It’s also possible to pause the motion and map out a plan to your crew to execute, which is particularly useful for the moments it’s essential pull off simultaneous kills or set off a distraction at simply the fitting second.
As soon as you have accomplished a stage and located your exit level, the sport replays your total run in an overhead perspective map, fast-forwarding via your chosen path and the guards you disappeared. It distills the hour or extra you spent slowly navigating your manner via a stage right into a minute or two, encapsulating the reminiscences of your profitable and typically haphazard strategy. Then, you get to begin the following mission and do all of it once more.
And I could not wait to do all of it once more, each time. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is, via and thru, a delight. The creative setting, swashbuckling macabre tone, an fulfilling solid of phenomenal characters, and a compelling gameplay loop all come collectively for a uniquely satisfying stealth-strategy expertise. I can’t solely suggest it, however I actually hope it is the beginning of a franchise in order that I can spend extra time with me mateys.