Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive

***Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive*** is the first game in the *Desperados series* released in July 2001 and the one of the first strategy games to include a movie-like, story-driven atmosphere. The game is considered by some to be the best game of the *Desperados series* and one of the best games in the real-time tactics genre.

## Plot

The game takes place in 1881, in New Mexico. Many trains have been robbed the last few months by unknown vicious bandits. The railroad company Twinnings & Co. Railway Company has offered $15,000 to anyone who can stop these bandits. Bounty hunter John Cooper meets company co-director B. Smith in El Paso and accepts the task in spite of Smith's reluctance. Cooper then sets off to gather his old partners to assist him with the mission. Cooper finds and rescues Sam in a cotton plantation in Louisiana, finds and saves Doc from hanging for fraud and swindle in Jennings, LA and finally finds and rescues Kate from captivity in Baton Rouge for her cheating in a poker tournament.

Cooper and his team meet Marshal Jackson who accuses Sanchez for the train robberies. Cooper and his team find out Sanchez's secret hideout, take him as captive and hand him over to Marshal Jackson. While Cooper is questioning Smith about El Diablo, a mysterious bandit leader, whom Sanchez accused for the train robberies, Smith gets assassinated. Cooper is blamed for the murder and his team is chased by Jackson's posse. The team escapes from El Paso and frees Sanchez from the prison of Fortezza in New Mexico and enlists his help. Finding out that while Sanchez was in jail, El Diablo took the opportunity to destroy his fortress and kill all of his gang members, Sanchez vows to take revenge and joins Cooper's team.

The team breaks into the office of one of El Diablo's right hand man, Carlos, in Socorro and looks for information about El Diablo. After robing Carlos' loot from the bank, Cooper and his team rest in an abandoned staging post owned by a Chinese man, an old acquaintance of Cooper. Jackson's posse attacks them at night, burns the hotel and kills the Chinese man. Cooper and his team annihilate the entire Jackson posse and Mia, the daughter of the Chinese man, joins the team to avenge her father's death. The team goes to Grant together by train and from there Cooper, Sam and Sanchez ride to Silver Creek to sneak into a secret meeting of El Diablo's men while Kate, Doc and Mia stay back in Grant to keep the escape route clear. On the way back to Grant, Cooper, Sam and Sanchez meet Mia who escaped from El Diablo's men while Kate and Doc were taken as captive and put on the train. Cooper and his team sneak on the train in Grant and reach Deadstone. They free Doc from El Diablo's men and pursue the bandits who have ridden away with Kate. At the entrance of El Diablo's hideout the whole team reassembles and enters the hideout via a cave but fall into a trap. Cooper and his team free themselves from El Diablo's men and chase after El Diablo. Cooper alone follows El Diablo to his chamber high above the mountain and learns his true identity as Jackson. Cooper manages to kill him after a tough combat.

## Gameplay

The player is able to control six characters. Each character has five distinct special abilities. Some characters can also perform some context based actions. The player is required to complete certain objectives in missions. There are 25 missions in total including the six tutorial missions. Although all out gunfight is possible in some missions, the player often needs to rely on stealth to complete the mission objectives.

The player can use a "spyglass" function on NPCs to see their fields of vision. The color of the field of vision (or cone of vision) is an information for the player about an enemy's awareness and intentions. If the cone is green, it means the person is calm. Similarly, a yellow cone signifies suspicion, and a red one means the NPC has spotted one of the characters. Some colors indicate a special status such as a pink cone, meaning the NPC has become attracted to Kate, or a black cone, meaning they have been hit by Mia's blowpipe and become berserk. The player can also use a mini map which shows the characters as green points, enemies as red points, civilians as blue points, collectibles
as yellow crosses, horses as brown points and other animals as grey points.

Another special feature introduced in the game is the Quick Action, in which certain actions - from running to a certain place up to using a weapon against a pre-targeted enemy - can be 'pre-programmed' and called upon immediately when needed. For instance, by programming his revolver with Quick Action, Cooper can either concentrate all three shots that he can fire on a single opponent or divide them between up to three targets without having to move the mouse cursor around.

The characters can ride horses and interact with the environment. Certain objects can be dropped over the enemies and some structures can be blown up with a TNT barrel.

## Characters

### Playable Characters

* John Cooper
* Kate O'Hara
* Samuel Williams
* Doc McCoy
* Pablo Sanchez
* Mia Yung

### Non-playable Characters

* B. Smith
* Bill
* Lola
* Charles Clayton
* Melissa
* Marshal Jackson
* Carlos
* El Diablo

## Missions

* 0. Demo
* 1. An Old Friend
* 2. Southern Comfort
* 3. Smoke Signals
* 4. Hang'm High!
* 5. Doc McCoy's Cabin
* 6. High Stakes
* 7. A Woman's Weapons
* 8. Into the Lion's Den
* 9. Like a Thief in the Night
* 10. Lullaby for Four Aces
* 11. Ambush at Snake Pass
* 12. Escape from El Paso
* 13. The Walls of Fortezza
* 14. They Called Him Grizzly
* 15. Dance with the Devil
* 16. A Fistful of Dollars
* 17. To the Last Bullet
* 18. The Magnificent Six
* 19. Blood Money
* 20. Little China Girl
* 21. Piggies in the Middle
* 22. Showdown in Deadstone
* 23. At the Gates of Hell
* 24. Deaths Overture
* 25. Inferno

## Locations

* El Paso, Texas
* Louisiana
* New Mexico

## Trivia

* Initially the game was named as **Death Valley** and had elements of fantasy including zombies. But later the idea was dropped and the name was changed to **Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive**.

* Spellbound worked on an add-on containing several new missions called as **webisodes**, but it was never released due to the silence from publisher side. The maps of these webisodes can be seen in a video released by THQ Nordic for the 20th anniversary of the series.

* On July 2018, an update for the game was released by THQ Nordic that improved compatibility with newer Windows OS, as well as ports to Mac OS and Linux and added more foreign dubs that were previously missing from most digital versions and included the demo mission. But the update does not support cheat, full keyboard layout and roll 'n' shoot feature which used to work in previous version.

* There are several modded missions available which have completely new mission objectives and story. The missions can be found in official Discord server of Desperados.

## Gallery

### Cover

Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive update coverDesperados: Wanted Dead or Alive front coverDesperados: Wanted Dead or Alive back coverDesperados:Wanted Dead or Alive US front coverDesperados: Wanted Dead or Alive US back cover