Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew

Shadow Gambit is the best Mimimi game and a great send off to the studio. They have made a core part of their stealth strategy games a diegetic element in the story. If you liked Desperados 3 or the Shadow Tactics entries you will probably like this too.

From the creators of Shadow Tactics and Desperados III, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is a triumphant send-off from Mimimi Games—a studio that has arguably mastered the modern real-time tactics genre. Blending stealth, supernatural abilities, and high-seas swashbuckling, Shadow Gambit is as mechanically tight as it is thematically bold. It’s not just a great tactics game—it’s one of the most inventive stealth experiences in recent years. Set in an alternate-history Caribbean plagued by the Inquisition and infused with magical curses, you command a ghost ship called the Red Marley and its undead pirate crew. Each crew member has been resurrected by otherworldly powers, giving them not only second lives but supernatural abilities tailor-made for tactical stealth gameplay. The plot is lighthearted but cleverly written, leaning into dark humor and pirate tropes without becoming gimmicky. Each crew member has a distinct personality, and their dialogue—especially the banter aboard the Marley—is genuinely entertaining. You’ll want to learn more about these cursed souls, not just for gameplay, but because they’re fun to be around. Shadow Gambit plays much like its predecessors: it’s a real-time stealth tactics game with a strong emphasis on planning, positioning, and precise execution. But this time, magic is fully integrated into both gameplay and narrative. Each crewmate has a unique set of powers that encourage creative solutions. For example: -Afia can blink to enemies and freeze time for a moment, ideal for split-second kills. -Suleidy grows bushes for cover or hides bodies in magical plants. -Gaëlle uses a ghost cannon to shoot allies across the map or knock out enemies. You choose which crew members to bring on each mission, opening the door for experimentation and replayability. The ability to save scum is now built into the story—thanks to your ship's time-warping powers, saving and rewinding time is not only allowed but encouraged. This removes frustration while still demanding skill and finesse. The level design is phenomenal. Each island feels handcrafted, filled with patrols, guard patterns, and multiple paths to complete objectives. Whether you’re slipping through shadows, teleporting past guards, or staging synchronized takedowns, missions reward clever thinking over brute force. Between missions, the Red Marley acts as your hub. You unlock more crewmates by recovering their skulls and reawakening them through side missions. There’s also a light RPG system—each character has a story arc and can gain new traits that tweak their playstyle. The game encourages experimentation and exploration over grinding. Optional objectives, multiple approaches, and stylized assassination opportunities make each level worth revisiting. Shadow Gambit isn’t a technical marvel, but it’s absolutely bursting with style. The stylized, vibrant art direction sells the supernatural Caribbean vibe beautifully. Characters are expressive, environments are lush and detailed, and spell effects give everything a satisfying flair. The soundtrack is moody and atmospheric, shifting from eerie tension to swashbuckling charm. Voice acting is surprisingly strong across the board, with each crewmate bringing personality and humor to the table. Final Thoughts Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is a near-perfect blend of genre expertise and creative ambition. Mimimi Games takes everything they’ve learned from past titles and adds a layer of charm and thematic freshness that makes this their most accessible—and most playful—game yet. It’s a fitting swan song for the studio and a must-play for fans of stealth, strategy, and smart game design. Pros: -Unique, well-balanced crew abilities -Excellent level design and mission variety -Seamless, story-integrated save/rewind mechanic -High replayability with open-ended solutions -Memorable characters and sharp writing Cons: -Occasional AI hiccups and pathfinding quirks -Some missions feel overly long on higher difficulties -No PvP or sandbox mode for casual experimentation A magical, stealthy, and delightfully weird adventure, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is one of the best real-time tactics games in years—and a worthy final voyage from a studio that perfected the art of quiet, calculated chaos. Rating: 8/10

Very sad to see this as Mimimi games last entry into their legendary games. I personally loved Shadow tactics, and thoroughly enjoyed Desperados. Shadow Gambit is a wonderful entry into the franchise, but it does lack difficulty that the prior two have. Everything about this game is gorgeous and can be challenging in its own sense, but it definitely does not hold a candle to the difficulty of Shadow tactics, which is what I had held the standards of others like this genre to. Overrall, I believe its def for newer players getting into this genre, but old fans will have a good time with this regardless.

puzzle stealth game very fun its kind of like XCOM but stealth.

I have a special fondness for this kind of stealth puzzle tactics game. Invisible Inc., Shadow Tactics, etc. This one is from the makers of Shadow Tactics but adds a fun spin with the PotC vibe. I keep expecting Johnny Depp or Keef Richards to pop in for a cameo. Open World players may find it a bit on rails and limited. But it's a puzzle game, using a real-time with pause-and-plan mode, player versus hand-crafted environment. If that's not your bag, so be it. I'll be hiding in that bush I grew over there while another me is launching themselves at an enemy guard on a sword of shadow while a third yanks a body out of sight with a fishing pole...

Greate game, love the voice acting - helps you feel that every has different personality. In terms of gameplay - on one hand you fully control the time, you can stop whenever you want, go back to "captured memory", yet the game feels hard if you wan't to win the round unnoticed. Recommended!

Good game. I've been a fan of the strategy games like Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, and this is a nice change from the WWII setting. Another bonus is that the strategy can change depending on who from the crew you take on the missions (you're not pigeon-holed into which players you'll be taking... unless it's a story quest for a specific character.) Looking forward to the next voyage with this crew.

The game is just great I love it. NO isues while gaming and its very fun to play. If you seek for a nice quality time on gaming solo this is for you.

This game is absolutely amazing! If you've ever played the Commando's games, this is very similar. Top down shadow tactics strategy game, utilizing a well rounded team to finish missions. I've been addicted, ever since I bought the game. Haven't had this much fun in a while.

Shadow gambit is a really cool game, with uniques mecaniques and definitely one if not the best game of the genre, too bad it is Mimimi last game, such a shame to loose some talented developpers with original idea that demark itself from most of the industry. Game is a really fun stealth strategy game with a lot of variety thanks to the complete roster of characters and various team composition. The game is really polished and has a clear idea of what it's trying to be, it is straightfoward. Story is kinda basic, entertaining and nice to uncover but it won't leave a mark on you. The setup with "surnatural" powers are a really nice vibe for fantasy enthusiast without creating OP godlike characters, most of them are fun to play and possess a nice backstory/lore. Art direction of the game was one of the thing which picked my interest at first and it is definitely top tier, such as level design. Took me about 40hours while taking my time to finish story + some side content, at this point it start to feel a bit repetitive and if you want to 100% the game, it definitely require a lot of grind and will be for hardcore fan only. Thank you Mimimi, and fare well !

I liked Desperados III but I love this! Because it's a pirate fantasy setting, it has this dark campy feel to it. A blend of Pirates of the Caribbean the Black Pearl and Disney's the hunted mansion. The abilities of the characters are nicely balanced. One little thing I would like to have seen is that you would not have to go back to the same island several times for different missions. The exploration of the islands, is part of the fun. Because the look so beautiful and have different secret caves to find out that allow you to make shortcuts.

This game has great writing, both characters and story, excellent visuals, and extremely fun gameplay.

Strategic puzzle game where you pick off the enemies without alerting the rest. It's not an action game (although sometimes it requires some planning and coordinating). And there is a lot of it. It can get a little repetitive after a time, but then I just take a pause from the game. Recommended!

Not bad, fun gameplay if you like commando's style of gameplay. On the other hand, story and the characters are rather bland, not a fan.

As always, this game studio delivers a great experience. Improves on previous games in all the right ways. The way the gameplay mechanic weaves into the story was unique and interesting. It's a shame they're shutting down.

Pure fun. Shadow Gambit is a fantastic real time tactics game, full of humour and with charming characters. High recommanded and more. It is a must play game for anyone who love this kind of games. I think it is probably the best (and for sure the last) "Mimimi Games" game

If you liked Shadow Tactics and / or Desperados III, you'll probably like this too, but it's not nearly as satisfying.

I give this a solid 7.5/10. fun, but not addictively fun.. But more fun than any Ubi game...

Good game but not as much as desparado3 and shadow tactics The main difference in this game other than the art concept is that characters in this game don't have AOE attacks. Does this make the game harder?(played everything normal mode) no because the placement of enemies and consequences for getting caught is much more forgiving. Also there is pause function if you press shift key. Oh, and another important thing to point out is that there are many starting location you could chose from. It was much easier overall so far. Personally making you struggle is what makes this game fun like solving a puzzle. It isn't a good because the harder it gets, the more fun it becomes saying that you don't get stuck for long periods of time. 6/10.

It’s Desperados, but worse Same gameplay, yet the characters are ugly goblins, the aesthetics are a clashing rainbow of radioactive colors, annoying sound effects, and pointless cutscenes. The between mission “gameplay” is pure annoyance and a time-waster Story? I couldn’t care less about the story of these troglodytes

I really hate to give this a thumbs down just because of voice acting—but someone has to say it. Afia, one of the main characters, has such a grating voice that it turned me off almost immediately, and I was only on Mission 1. This is especially disappointing coming from someone who’s played and loved all of Mimimi’s previous games. No matter how good the gameplay might be, the voice acting is a real letdown. And yes, I know I can turn off voices and use subtitles—but doing that takes away from the experience. In past Mimimi games, voice acting was a standout feature. Here, it actively detracts from the immersion.

For the purpose of this review, I’m mainly going to focus on how Shadow Gambit compares to Mimimi’s previous games, Shadow Tactics and Desperados III. Let’s start with the good things this game does in comparison to its predecessors. Out of all Mimimi’s stealth games, Shadow Gambit’s character roster is the biggest ever, with a total of 10 characters if you have both DLCs, and unlike previous games, you usually get to choose which characters to bring into each map rather than them being chosen for you. Despite the increased roster size, the characters all feel unique, with each character possessing an exclusive set of skills and mechanics. This game’s characters also seem more balanced than its predecessors’. While some characters are stronger than others, it never felt punishing to play with some of the slightly weaker characters. The gameplay format mostly sticks to the tried-and-true style its predecessors have used, which makes for some very fun times. (The way the new default camera works is awful, but you can change it to the classic camera mode in the settings.) If you enjoyed the gameplay from the previous games, you will probably enjoy it in this one too. For the negatives, let me just start by addressing the elephant in the room. As you may have heard, Sweet Baby Inc. was used as a consultant during the making of this game. Given my positive experiences with Mimimi’s previous games, I had really hoped that the complaints about woke stuff in this game were overblown, but they aren’t, and honestly, this game has Sweet Baby Inc.’s fingerprints all over it. Don’t take my word for it though. Just ask yourself for a moment, in a game about undead pirates, what would you expect the pirate cast to look like? Like the characters in Pirates of the Caribbean perhaps? Then take a look at the roster of characters on the cover art of this game. Does the image match what your expectations were? No? I didn’t think so. Now before a horde of SJWs all come in here with the tired “You’re R-R-Racist!” accusations, let me just say that my complaints are not about the existence of diversity in games. Desperados III had a diverse cast and was a great game. My complaint is that the developers have artificially inserted diversity into a genre where it clearly makes no sense. That is to say, when the first 3 characters of undead pirates you can unlock and play as are two black woman (with, quite frankly, obnoxious childlike personalities to boot) and an Asian man who is obsessed with cooking, it is a complete violation of the suspense of disbelief. (Like why on earth would you even need a cook when almost the entire cast are literally undead skeletons?) The combination of this, the completely childish writing, and the outlandishly cringey dialogue did one of the absolutely worst things you can do in a game: turn the story and dialogue cutscenes into a boring chore. As I played, I found myself unable to care about the story AT ALL, and I only kept playing because the actual gameplay portions of the game were decent. That’s a far cry from Shadow Tactics and Desperados, which had interesting storylines and characters you could understand and identify with. It also bears mentioning that while the gameplay is still great overall, it does seem somewhat inferior to the gameplay in Mimimi’s other games. The missions in this game are designed differently than previous games in that the maps tend to be much larger and you also get multiple entrance and exit points from the map. The combination of this and the fact that the maps are no longer designed for specific character combinations means that the game feels less challenging than its predecessors, and on the larger maps, the gameplay can start to feel downright repetitive, especially since the islands are often reused for multiple missions. The developers have said that you aren’t meant to traverse the entire island for each mission, but that is belied by the fact that many islands have badges like “Kill everyone on the island” which will in fact require you to traverse the entire island. Oh, and if you want to unlock the final secret character, you are forced to do 85% of the badge challenges, and there are significantly more badges than the previous games ever had. For me, I gave up at 75% when it just started feeling way too grindy. None of Mimimi’s other games ever did anything like this. To conclude, while this game still has fun gameplay, the game as a whole pales in comparison with Mimimi’s three other stealth games, Shadow Tactics (both) and Desperados III. For that reason, I’m giving this game a thumbs down.

The final form of Mimimi's fantastic stealth tactics genre, and a fitting send-off (RIP),

Fun game that extends on their previous titles success!

Goofy pirates and team stealth (:

Another Good Game From Mimimi Games.

it's great

love it

The game is great. Voice acting is top notch and the writing will make you die laughing. Gameplay can get stale in long sessions but the true genius of this game is that it's bite-sized; each level is wholly sastifying on its own, meaning there's no rush to binge it. Cannot recommend it enough. Worth every penny.

cool

good game

yes