With premier stealth-tactics studio Mimimi Games shutting down, Hooded Horse will take over publishing duties for its final game: Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. The 2023 isometric stealth release was widely considered a pinnacle of the genre and one of the year's best games—PC Gamer called it just that with its Best Stealth of 2023 award.
Mimimi announced last year that Shadow Gambit would be its final release, surrendering to the increasingly stressful reality of modern games development in favor of the health of its developers. "Working on increasingly ambitious games took a heavy personal toll on us and our families" it said at the time, wrapping up 15 years of development that included hits like Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun and Desperados 3.
Hooded Horse is an up-and-coming strategy publisher, and hopefully a good long-term home for Mimimi's swansong of fantasy Caribbean pirates and their quest for the ultimate treasure on a literal ghost ship. The 2023 release received two really good expansion packs, Zagan's Ritual and Yuki's Wish, before the studio closed up late last year.
"Shadow Gambit is in its final form, and we’re excited to be partnering with Hooded Horse for its ongoing commercial needs," said Mimimi co-founder Johannes Roth in a press release. "We're very impressed by their approach to indie publishing and are confident they will help the game reach even more players."
Shadow Gambit got an 87% review here on PC Gamer, with reviewer Dominic Tarason calling it "Superb squad-based stealth strategy that embraces the magic of save-scumming." Which it definitely does, in a uniquely cool way, by having the whole thing work around time-altering magic.
Here's hoping the genre-defining hit stays available for many years to come.
