Despite having great future prospects, three successful continuations and two decent imitators, the genre didn't stand the test of time.Īs the era began to favor rapid development of 3D graphics and the general trend turned towards simplifying games rather than demanding more from the players, the rather difficult and not very spectacular isometric stealth games lost the support of developers. Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines was the first game of a kind in which we observed the battlefield from a bird's eye view and commanded a group of British SOF operatives, carrying out undercover missions behind the frontlines of World War II.
Said family of games was born in 1998, at a time when good old Pentium II rigs were squeezing the last juices out of their 233 MHz cores, and the static charge of CRT monitors could lift small objects from our desks. It is hard to imagine a better setting for a production aiming to breathe new life into a venerable fossil from the upper Paleozoic of gaming – the tactical RTS (or RTT) genre. Long initial loading time of levels, unless you have an SSD.Įarly 17th century Japan – a world of intrigue, ninjas, and shurikens flying thick and fast.Strict division into separate missions, without any tasks connecting them or meta-game elements.You can issue only one command in Shadow Mode.