Call Of Juarez The Cartel <FRESH>
The biggest sin of The Cartel isn’t that it’s a bad game—it’s that it’s a forgettable one. The Wild West genre is defined by wide-open spaces, tension-filled standoffs, and a sense of lonely majesty. The Cartel offers congested highways, chain-link fences, and grey, grimy urban corridors.
In a move that baffled fans and critics alike, developer Techland abandoned the 19th century for the 21st, swapping horses for SUVs and six-shooters for assault rifles. The result is one of the most infamous left-turns in gaming history. A decade and a half later, is Call of Juarez: The Cartel a misunderstood experiment or a deserved punchline?
Call of Juarez: The Cartel was savaged by critics (sitting in the low 40s on Metacritic) and rejected by fans. It effectively killed the franchise for nearly a decade, until the surprise VR title Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (a return to form) reminded everyone what made the series special. call of juarez the cartel
The Black Sheep of Boundin’ Gulch: Revisiting Call of Juarez: The Cartel
For fans of the Wild West, the Call of Juarez series was a reliable steed. The 2006 original and its prequel, Bound in Blood (2009), delivered sun-scorched duels, lever-action rifles, and the unique narrative hook of a preacher-turned-gunslinger. They were B-tier classics with A-tier heart. The biggest sin of The Cartel isn’t that
The iconic “Concentration” mode (slow-motion fanning the hammer) is replaced by a generic “bullet time” ability. The duels, a hallmark of the series, are gone entirely. If you stripped the Call of Juarez logo from the box, no one would ever guess it was part of the same franchise.
So, is it worth playing today? Only as a museum piece. It’s a fascinating artifact of an era when publishers desperately wanted to chase Call of Duty ’s modern warfare success, even if it meant driving a beloved franchise off a cliff. Techland would later learn from their mistakes, finding massive success with Dying Light —a game that knew exactly what it wanted to be. In a move that baffled fans and critics
Call of Juarez: The Cartel is the black sheep that no one in the family talks about at reunions. And for good reason. Sometimes, you can’t go home again—especially if someone bulldozed the saloon to build a parking lot.
Then came 2011. And then came The Cartel .