While at E3, I had the opportunity to get a hands-on look at Desperados III, the new threequel developed by Mimimi Games (Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun), and published by THQ Nordic.

What I played and saw left me extremely impressed, even as someone who is not that familiar with the genre. The pure scale of the some of the levels I saw left me feeling a sense of wonder and excitement.

All the possible ways I could attempt to complete the levels began to rush through my mind. The developers ensured us as we went through our demo that they wanted the game to be as open as possible.

For those who are unfamiliar with the developer’s previous title, Shadow Tactics, it’s an isometric real time game that requires you to plan ahead and plot out your path carefully.

If you make one wrong step, it could spell disaster and lead to you a game over. There are five playable characters, three of which are returning characters from the Desperados series, and two are all-new just for this new installment.

Each character has their own abilities and playstyle that the player can swap to on the fly to finish levels. The game is designed for players to never get stuck on one thing for too long, but definitely punishes you for being reckless.

One thing that really made me happy is that, while the game was clearly built with PC controls in mind, the controller UI and controls also feel incredibly intuitive and never left me thinking, “wait, what button,” or “how do I do that again?”

Desperados III‘s plot is a prequel to the original Desperados games, and will tell the story of John Cooper and how he meets his old partners Doc McCoy and Kate O’Hara. It explores how their story progressed to the point in which Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive took place.

Fans of the original games will no doubt be happy with what they get to experience in Desperados III, while fans of Shadow Tactics will happy to know that it plays like a much more polished Shadow Tactics game.

The development team has learned a lot from the critical response to their massively successful title and want to build upon that already strong foundation, and it shows.

While I may not have known anything about the game going into the press booth, I walked out excited to get my hands on the final product in the future. Mimimi continues to impress with their dedication to this particular style of isometric strategy RPG game.

I have no doubt that when Desperados III launches, it will blow people away.

As a side note, during my time with the game director, Dominik Abé, he told us that the original two Desperados games were the main inspiration for Shadow Tactics.

Here he is, a few years later as the director of a new Desperados game. I don’t know about you, but I think that is really awesome. Desperados III launches sometime 2019 for PC (via Steam), Playstation 4, and Xbox One.