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.
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.