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Commandos-likes, or stealth strategy (as promoted by Mimimi Games), are games from a specific subgenre of real-time tactics genre.

It was initiated and invented by Pyro Studios' Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, which was released in Europe on 24 June 1998. After a decline in mid-2000s, it was revived by the production of Mimimi Games. First, with their Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun in 2016, and later, other games started to arise in 2020s.

Some strategy games are often mistaken for this kind. The truly relevant games have:

  • a real-time run, mostly with the pause option
  • a bird's-eye view, not necessarily isometric
  • a playable group of characters with unique skills or equipment
  • guards with assigned spots and routes
  • dominant stealth gameplay, it does not consist of gunfights
  • possible displaying the viewcones of guards and civilians
  • easy save and load which is counted on

Commandos-likes are quite a niche subgenre. There are only four developer studios which made more than one game, Pyro Studios (3 + 1 standalone expansion), Spellbound Entertainment (5), Mimimi Games (3 + 1 standalone expansion), and Destructive Creations (2). The former three are defunct by now and had financial problems at the time when they left making this sort of games. The only other series is Desperados.

All games in the subgenre without the Commandos series itself:
Release Date Title Developer Dev Headquarters Publisher Setting
20 March 2001 Star Trek: Away Team Reflexive Entertainment Lake Forest, California, USA Activision Star Trek
18 April 2001 Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive Spellbound Entertainment Kehl, Germany Infogrames Wild West
18 May 2001 The Mission 1937 Unlimited Mirage Entertainment (无限幻境工作室) probably Shenzhen, Guangdong, China Game King (金智塔) Second Sino-Japanese War
12 November 2002 Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood Spellbound Entertainment Kehl, Germany Wanadoo Edition England, 12th century
2 November 2003 Korea: Forgotten Conflict Plastic Reality Technologies Brno, Czech Republic Cenega Publishing Korean War
17 November 2003 Chicago 1930 Spellbound Entertainment Kehl, Germany Wanadoo Edition American Prohibition era
27 April 2006 Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge Spellbound Entertainment Kehl, Germany Atari Wild West
25 May 2007 Helldorado Spellbound Entertainment Kehl, Germany DTP Entertainment Wild West
6 December 2016 Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun Mimimi Productions Munich, Germany Daedalic Entertainment Japan, 17th century
16 June 2020 Desperados III Mimimi Productions Munich, Germany THQ Nordic Wild West
14 October 2020 Partisans 1941 Alter Games Moscow, Russia Daedalic Entertainment World War II, Eastern Front
24 May 2021 Operation Osama Bin Laden Srimasis Rout Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India Srimasis Rout Northern Pakistan, war on terror
19 October 2021 War Mongrels Destructive Creations Hlivice, Poland Destructive Creations World War II, Eastern Front
6 December 2021 Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun - Aiko's Choice Mimimi Productions Munich, Germany Daedalic Entertainment Japan, 17th century
27 March 2023 Chinese Expeditionary Force - Assault Team The Hard Game China The Hard Game World War II, Burma
17 August 2023 Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew Mimimi Games (renamed) Munich, Germany Mimimi Games (renamed) Nautical fantasy
3 November 2023 Frigato: Shadows of the Caribbean Mercat Games Warsaw, Poland FreeMind S.A. Nautical fantasy
23 January 2024 Stargate: Timekeepers Slitherine Poland Warsaw, Poland Slitherine Software Stargate
24 January 2024 Red Glare BT Studios Hyderabad, Telangana, India BT Studios World War II, South America
24 June 2024 Wooden Battles: Spec Ops SP Digital Arts Inc. British Columbia, Canada SP Digital Arts Inc. Toy soldiers
2 September 2024 Sumerian Six Artificer Warsaw, Poland Devolver Digital World War II fantasy
26 September 2024 63 Days Destructive Creations Hlivice, Poland Destructive Creations World War II, Warsaw Uprising
2025 First Blood: Persian Legends Wiseman Studio Dhaka, Bangladesh Wiseman Studio Sassanid Empire, 5th century
Roma Incognita C&C Game Studio Belarus C&C Game Studio Roman Republic, 1st century BCE
Shadow Seven Radical Ravens Poprad, Slovakia Radical Ravens Fairytale fantasy
TLA Tactics Last Tuesday Games Last Tuesday Games World War II

As for Commandos: Strike Force, the only game attempting to do a similar thing to it (First person stealth with a focus on character switching) is Signal Ops for the PC which is available from Steam and GOG.

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