Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is a 2013 Western-themed first-person shooter for PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Switch. Developed by Techland and originally published by Ubisoft, it was released in May 2013 for PlayStation 3, Windows and Xbox 360. The Switch port was released in December 2019. It is the fourth game in the Call of Juarez series, although narratively, it is unrelated to the three previous titles (Call of Juarez, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, and Call of Juarez: The Cartel).
The game tells the story of Silas Greaves, a bounty hunter in the American West during the second half of the 19th century. Telling his story to a group of saloon patrons in 1910, Silas's increasingly grandiose and difficult-to-believe tales find him hunting Roscoe "Rustling Bob" Bryant, as he either teams up with or squares off against Wild West legends such as Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Newman Haynes Clanton, Johnny Ringo, Curly Bill Brocius, Henry Plummer, John Wesley Hardin, a Chiricahua war party, the Dalton Gang, George Curry, Kid Curry, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Jesse James, and Frank James.
After The Cartel changed the series' setting from the Wild West to the modern-day, Gunslinger returned the series to a western setting. In making the game, the designers were very much trying to redeem the reputation of the Call of Juarez brand after the critically reviled and commercially unsuccessful The Cartel. In returning to the Wild West setting of the first two games in the series, the designers decided to focus on the importance of storytelling in myth-making. Basing the narrative structure on Bastion, they aimed to use the game's unreliable narrator to examine the fine line between fact and fiction in establishing the legends of some of the West's best-known figures.
Gunslinger received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the storytelling, the fast-paced arcade-style shooting mechanics, the graphics, the voice acting, and the humor. Many also felt that the game was good enough to erase the memories of The Cartel. Criticisms focused on a predictable ending and shallow boss battles. The Switch port also received generally positive reviews and was praised for its fidelity to the original, although some critics took issue with the controls. The game was a commercial success, becoming Ubisoft's second best-selling digital-only title of 2013, after Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.
Gameplay Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is a first-person shooter in which there is, unlike the previous games in the Call of Juarez series, only one player character available - the bounty hunter Silas Greaves. Each level in the game features a series of primary objectives, which must be completed sequentially as the player moves through the map. Available weaponry includes six-shooters, quickshooters, rangers, shotguns, sawed-off shotguns, rifles, sawed-off rifles, and dynamite. Unique and more powerful weaponry can also be unlocked as the player proceeds through the game.
The campaign is in the form of a story told by Silas, who is quickly established as an unreliable narrator. As his audience challenges the inconsistencies in his increasingly grandiose tales, Silas often revises the story, which can result in abrupt changes to the in-game environment. For example, there is a shootout that Silas acknowledges didn't happen, with the story literally "rewinding" in order to allow him to alter his narrative; the appearance and immediate disappearance of an Apache war party; an entire section of a level which Silas reveals to be what didn't happen; the appearance of a character without explanation, forcing Silas to go back and create some narrative context; a scene in which Silas finds himself trapped in a cave, until he mentions a way out, which then literally forms in front of the player; a portion of a level which is played through three times, with major differences between each playthrough, as a different character tells the tale each time; a level in which the weather changes several times as Silas alters what time of year it took place; the appearance and immediate disappearance of a group of Pinkertons; a level which begins with Silas on a train with no explanation as to how he got there, until someone points out this omission, with the level restarting before Silas gets on board; a level in which the narrative pauses as Silas goes to the toilet, and we hear the other characters debating the authenticity of his stories before he returns and resumes his tale.
As with previous Call of Juarez games, "Concentration mode" is an important gameplay element; the difference here is that Gunslinger features multiple types of concentration modes. The standard mode is charged by killing enemies, with headshots charging the meter faster than body shots. Once the player activates their concentration meter, the game goes into slow motion and all enemies are automatically highlighted in red. Other forms of concentration mode include falls, door breaches, Quick Time Events (QTEs), and "Sense of Death". Falls and door breaches work the same way as normal concentration mode, except they automatically happen at certain locations irrespective of whether the player's concentration meter is charged. Falls happen when Silas is falling and there are enemies below him. Breaches happen when Silas bursts through a door.
QTEs also happen automatically. Silas will automatically target an enemy and the player is required to press a specific button to shoot and kill that enemy. If done correctly, the reticle will automatically jump to the next enemy, and so on, up to five enemies. If the player fails at any point, the game exits concentration mode and continues normally. For Sense of Death, as the player avoids game over, by having their health dip low before increasing it again, they fill their Sense of Death meter. When this meter is full, it will automatically activate when Silas is one shot away from death. When that shot is taken, the game will go into slow motion and the player will be granted the ability to dodge left or right to avoid the fatal bullet.
Every kill in the game is rewarded with experience points. A basic kill, a long shot, a headshot, and shooting a running enemy all earn 50 points, with the point total being cumulative - so, for example, a long-range headshot will earn 150 points. Other point values include killing an enemy with an exploding barrel (100), a ricochet kill (100), killing two enemies with a single shot (150), or killing an enemy with falling environmental objects (200). The player can increase their experience points haul by achieving combos; multiple kills in quick succession which increase the combo score by one for each kill (so a 150-point kill might earn 300 or 450 points, and so on). The meter will reset after a few seconds if no kills are made. These experience points allow the player to level up their skills via three skill trees; Gunslinger (focuses on handguns), Ranger (rifles), and Trapper (shotguns). After beating the game, the player can start a New Game+, carrying over their unlocked skills, which allows them to eventually fully master all three categories.
The game also features numerous duels, usually at the end of a level. In these shootouts, the game switches to third-person and the character and enemy face off against one another. There are two gauges on-screen - focus and hand speed. The player must use the dual analog sticks (or mouse and keyboard) and attempt to control both gauges so as to achieve as high a percentage as possible. The focus gauge must be kept over the enemy and the higher the focus percentage, the smaller the gauge gets and the more precise the shot will be when taken. The speed gauge keeps the player's hand as close to their gun as possible without touching it, and the higher the speed percentage, the quicker the gun will be drawn. The player has two options in every duel - they can draw before their opponent and get a lower-scoring dishonourable kill or wait until the opponent has drawn and get a higher-scoring honourable kill.
Aside from the campaign, there is also an Arcade mode and a Duel mode. In Arcade mode, the player can pick from three different character classes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. They must then face waves of enemies in locations taken from the campaign but modified specifically for Arcade play. In Duel mode, the player duels sequentially with all the end-of-level enemies from the campaign, with five lives to defeat all 15 opponents.
Plot The game begins in Abilene, Kansas in 1910, as legendary bounty hunter Silas Greaves enters a saloon and begins regaling those present (a sarcastic man named Jack, an old-timer called Steve, bartender Molly, a teenager named Dwight, and the barman, Ben) with tales of his adventures.
He begins in New Mexico Territory in December 1880. In the midst of the Lincoln County War, Silas is with the Regulators, an outfit led by Billy the Kid. He is hunting a man named Roscoe "Bob" Bryant who is riding with the John Kinney Gang, sworn enemies of the Regulators. After their hideout is attacked by a posse led by Pat Garrett, Billy and Silas are arrested, placed in a Lincoln jail, and sentenced to hang. However, four months later, Billy engineers a jailbreak and both he and Silas escape. Heading to Mexico, Silas is hired by the Rurales to track down the Cochise County Cowboys. Silas is especially keen to get his hands on cowboy Johnny Ringo, a past acquaintance of Bob's. He tracks the gang to Guadalupe Canyon, killing many of them, including their leader, Newman Haynes Clanton. Shortly thereafter, he tracks the remaining Cowboys, now led by Curly Bill Brocius, to Iron Springs, Arizona. Silas kills Bill, and several months later, he tracks down Ringo, also killing him.
After being well-paid for the deaths of Curly Bill and Ringo, Silas realises how much money is to be made in bounty hunting. He subsequently tracks and kills Henry Plummer, former sheriff of Bannack, Montana, who was accused of leading a gang of murderers and thieves called the Innocents. Next he tracks John Wesley Hardin, who he arrests in Abilene. He is then employed to hunt down a Chiricahua medicine man known as Grey Wolf who led a war party against the US Army in retaliation for an unprovoked massacre at his daughter's wedding. Grey Wolf, however, manages to elude Silasthe only outlaw to do so. He next tracks and defeats the Dalton Gang after their disastrous attempt to rob two banks at the same time in Coffeyville, Kansas.
Silas then explains that he wants Bob dead because in 1868 in Juarez, Bob, Ringo, and Jim Reed were responsible for the deaths of Silas's two older brothers, and almost killed Silas himself. Returning to his story, in June 1899, Silas hears that Bob is riding with the Wild Bunch. However, after confronting and killing George Curry, Silas finds no trace of Bob. Five years later, he hears that the gang are back together, under the leadership of Kid Curry. He tracks them to Parachute, Colorado, eliminating most of them before confronting Curry, who taunts him by saying that Bob is in Bolivia with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Frustrated, he kills Curry.
Silas then backtracks to November 1881, when Jim Reed was riding with the James–Younger Gang. After interrupting an attempt to rob the Rock Island Railroad near Winston, Missouri, Silas confronts and wounds Jesse James. Jim and Frank James escape into the Ozarks, but Silas quickly finds Frank, who points him towards Jim. Eventually, Silas finds and kills Jim.