Shadow Gambit has a talking boat, non-linear missions and an undead ninja pirate

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.

It’s a terrible cliché to describe a setting as “a character”, and so I winced a little when they described Shadow Gambit’s home pirate ship, Red Marley, as “one of the main characters in the game.” It was redeemed moments later when it turned out to be literal. You can talk to your ship, who has a big ghostly green face.

The ship also represents another change, in that you can sail to different islands to undertake missions in any order, rather than the linear progression of Desperados 3 and Shadow Tactics. Each island is its own self-contained sandbox with different entry points you can choose to land at, and you can select different crew members to bring along depending on the approach you’re taking to the mission.

The devs at Mimimi also talk a lot about Shadow Gambit being the first of their games to feature magic, and how being unburdened by realism has allowed them to introduce more imaginative abilities. They illustrate this by revealing a new character, an “undead ninja pirate” named Toya, who can teleport long distances.

Katharine already got a personal tour of Shadow Gambit earlier this year, and has spoken with Mimimi at length about their ambitions for the project and the “stealth-strategy” genre.