Call of Juarez: The Cartel an Unfinished "Mistake," Dev Says
Call of Juarez: The Cartel, released in 2011 for console and PC, was an unfinished "mistake." That blunt assessment doesn't come from the mouth of a critic, but rather the CEO of the studio that made the game.
Techland CEO Pawel Marchewka said in a new interview with Eurogamer that The Cartel "wasn't a bad game, but it wasn't finished when we released it." He went on to label the game "a mistake."
GameSpot scored The Cartel a 6/10. Critic Kevin VanOrd wrote: "Some distinguishing features give this shooter a touch of class, but bugs and execution flaws cast a long shadow over Call of Juarez: The Cartel."
The latest entry in the Call of Juarez series was 2013's much-improved Gunslinger. Marchewka said if Techland were to return to the Western series someday, the studio would probably follow this game's formula.
"We co-own the IP with Ubisoft, so we are joined together," Marchewka said. "We have to decide together when will be the best time to maybe produce another version of Gunslinger. Probably we will stay with the style of the last one."
Marchewka said Gunslinger proves that Call of Juarez, if done right, can be a great franchise. He went on to say that Techland would love to return to the series someday, even if there are no immediate plans to do so.
"We definitely know the genre, we love the genre, we'd love to come back, it's just that at the moment there are more important topics to deal with," he said.
Techland recently put its co-op slasher Hellraid "on hold" so it could focus on the Dying Light zombie series, which has now attracted 4.5 million players. In addition to this. Marchewka teased that Techland has other, unannounced "big projects" in the works, as well as "a couple" mobile games.
The Call of Juarez series debuted in 2006, with a sequel, Bound in Blood, released in 2009. As mentioned earlier, The Cartel launched in 2011, while Gunslinger debuted in 2013.
Would you be interested in another Call of Juarez game? What would you like to see from it? Let us know in the comments below.
