Way back in 2001 Desperadoes strolled onto the PC and held-up our hearts at gunpoint. It was an excellent strategy game that had you control a band of misfit Wild Westers – among them a courtesan with a knack for disguises, a sharpshooter, and a doctor who dabbled with poisons – in an effort to rob trains and mete out vengeance across the frontier.
It saw one sequel and then descended into the sub-basement of the video game archives.
Until now.
Nordic Games, a publisher which has started to make a name for itself via a few canny acquisitions, has just bought the IP from Atari. They’re not too sure what to do with the license now they have it and rather than just cash in on the series, they’ve opened it up to discussion on their forums for fans to weigh in on what they’d like to see made of it.
Nordic appeared on our radar earlier this year after they snapped up the Darksiders IP from the now defunct THQ. There, again, they said they’d bought the license because it was a series they liked but had no immediate plans for what to do with it, only that they’d like to be instrumental in continuing the series.
Desperados was an ace game, it took place in a rough frontier world and offered a satisfying challenge. A sequel is well-deserved, though I’m interested to see if the model of game that made sense in 2001 couldn’t be improved – isometric, squad-based strategy games aren’t so common these days but Firaxis showed with Xcom that they can still find a place on the PC.
Nordic also acquired the license to the Silver games from ailing publisher Atari.