Call of Juarez is a 2006 Western-themed first-person shooter for Windows and Xbox 360. Developed by Techland, the Windows version was published in Europe by Focus Home Interactive in September 2006, in Australia by Auran Development in October 2006, and in North America by Ubisoft in June 2007. The Xbox 360 version was ported by Techland and published worldwide by Ubisoft in June 2007. In March 2011, it was made available on Xbox Live, and in November 2018, it was released on GOG.com. It is the first game in the Call of Juarez series, which would go on to include three additional titles; Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (a prequel to the first game), Call of Juarez: The Cartel (set in the modern-day), and Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (returns the series to the Western setting).
The game tells the story of Billy 'Candle', a young ranch hand and fortune-seeker, and Ray McCall, a former gunslinger turned preacher. After two years in Juarez unsuccessfully looking for the mysterious "Gold of Juarez", Billy returns to his hometown of Hope, Texas, near the Mexican border. However, when he arrives at his farm, he finds his mother and stepfather have been murdered, and "Call of Juarez" written on a barn in their blood. Mistakenly believing that Billy is the killer, Ray (his step-uncle) abandons his role as the town's preacher and sets out to avenge their deaths by killing Billy, as Billy himself tries to find out who actually committed the murders, and why.
Originally called Lawman, Call of Juarez was initially conceived as a reaction to World War II and science fiction games dominating the first-person shooter genre. The designers drew inspiration from a range of Western-themed films, TV shows, and literature, as well as some real-life stories and figures. The game was built using Techland's in-house game engine, the Chrome Engine. For the subsequent Xbox 360 release, numerous graphical improvements were made, and some gameplay elements were changed, reducing the amount of stealth in Billy's levels. The North American PC release version incorporated many of these graphical and gameplay changes and was one of the first PC games optimized for Windows Vista and DirectX 10. Techland also released a patch allowing for those who owned the original DirectX9 version of the game to upgrade to the DirectX10 version.
Call of Juarez received mixed reviews, with most critics praising Ray's levels and the general shooting mechanics, but finding Billy's levels significantly inferior, especially the platforming sections and the implementation of the whip. The enemy AI was also criticised. On the other hand, many critics were impressed with how the game recreated an authentic Western tone, and Marc Alaimo's voice acting as Ray was generally lauded. Although the game did not sell very well in North America, it fared better in Europe, with Techland citing it as "putting us on the map."
Gameplay Call of Juarez is a first-person shooter in which the player controls alternating protagonists - Billy 'Candle' and Ray McCall, each of whom has a different style of gameplay. Billy's levels are partially stealth-based, whereas Ray's are more traditional shoot 'em ups.
Although the style of play for each character is different, controlling them is broadly similar. Each shares an identical HUD, with the same information available to the player. Both can single-wield or dual wield handguns and single-wield other weapons, such as rifles. Both can also interact with certain objects, such as health pick-ups (in the Xbox 360 version, health automatically regenerates over time), ammo, and weaponry. Both characters can also throw dynamite and can start fires by throwing or shooting oil lamps. Both are capable of hand-to-hand combat, although Ray can pick up items such as chairs, and either throw them at enemies or use them as melee weapons. Both can also ride horses, from which they can shoot and enter gallop mode. Gallop mode can only be maintained for a certain amount of time before the horse becomes fatigued.
The main difference between the two characters is that Ray is stronger and slower, and although he cannot jump as high as Billy, he can kick heavy obstacles out of his way and take considerably more damage from enemy fire, due to wearing a cuirass. Billy can move faster than Ray and is quieter, allowing him to sneak up on enemies. He can also grip onto ledges and pull himself up. Billy can also use two weapons that Ray cannot - a bow and a whip. When Billy uses the bow, the game automatically goes into slow motion for a set period. This is the only weapon in the game that allows for silent kills. The whip is very weak as a weapon, and is mainly used to aid Billy in climbing or jumping over large gaps, by lassoing nearby trees. Unique to Ray is his ability to rapid-fire a single six-shooter (fanning) and his ability to wield a Bible. If the player presses the shoot button for the hand holding the Bible, Ray will quote a random bible passage. This will occasionally cause enemies to panic and drop their weapons, freeze, or run away entirely.
Another important difference is that when controlling Ray, the player has access to "concentration mode". During combat, when he draws either handgun, concentration mode is automatically activated, and the game goes into slow motion, with two targeting reticles appearing on either side of the screen, each moving towards the centre. The player cannot control the movement of either reticle, nor can they move the character during concentration mode, but they can control the positioning of the screen, allowing them to manoeuvre Ray's stance to shoot when the reticles pass over an enemy. Players can also shoot independently from either their left or right gun, or both simultaneously. Ray's levels also involve numerous duels between himself and one or more enemies. In these shootouts, the player must wait for a countdown, at which point the enemy will reach for their weapon. Only then can Ray draw his own gun and fire. To draw Ray's gun, the player must move the mouse/analog stick downwards and then snap it upwards, at which point a reticule appears on screen which can be controlled as normal. Character movement during duels is limited to leaning left and right.
Unlike Ray's levels, Billy's feature an element of stealth gameplay. Billy can move silently whilst in sneak mode and can hide in bushes and shadows. When he does so, he is hidden from enemy sight, and his character icon on the HUD is blacked out to show he cannot be seen. Often, even if he is seen, if he can hide quickly enough, he will escape permanent detection.
Multiplayer The game's multiplayer mode is available via LAN and online on Microsoft Windows, and via System Link and Xbox Live on Xbox 360. Both the Windows and the Xbox 360 versions feature "Deathmatch", "Skirmish" (team deathmatch), "Robbery" (the team designated as "Outlaws" must find the hidden gold and return it to an "escape zone" without being caught by the team designated as "Lawmen"), and "Gold Rush" (gold is spread over the map; at the end of a specified time, the player who has collected the most gold wins).
The Xbox 360 version also features "Capture the Bag" (each team has a bag of gold. To win, one team must capture the other team's bag and return it to their own base), "Wanted" (one player is randomly designated as the "wanted" player, and other players can only score points by killing this particular player. Once the wanted player is killed, the player who killed them then becomes the wanted player. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins), and "Famous Events" (game scenarios based on real-life events, such as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the Wilcox Train Robbery, the Coffeyville Bank Robbery, and scenarios based on robberies committed by Jesse James and Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch).
Both the Windows and the Xbox 360 versions of the game feature four multiplayer classes - "Rifleman" (wields two revolvers and a rifle), "Gunslinger" (wields two revolvers and several sticks of dynamite), "Miner" (wields a revolver, a shotgun, and a full complement of dynamite), and "Sniper" (wields a revolver and a sniper rifle).
Plot The Lost Gold of Juarez was supposedly the ransom for Moctezuma II, held hostage by conquistadors in Tenochtitlan, but it disappeared after the city fell, with some believing it was buried near the town of Juarez. The legend says that Huītzilōpōchtli placed a curse on the gold, causing all who seek it to descend into madness. This madness is known as the Call of Juarez.
Texas, 1884. Seventeen-year-old Billy 'Candle' returns home after two unsuccessful years of searching for the gold. Although excited to see his mother, Marisa, he has no desire to see his stepfather Thomas, who used to beat him daily. Billy doesn't know who his real father is, he got his nickname from a medallion with a candle engraved on it, given to him by Marisa. Meanwhile, Reverend Ray McCall is giving a sermon in town. Rumored to have once been a gunslinger, Ray is Thomas's older brother and now the local preacher. Alerted to gunshots at Thomas's farm, Ray arrives to find Thomas and Marisa dead, the words "Call of Juarez" written on the wall in their blood, and Billy standing over the bodies. Billy panics and flees, with Ray assuming he is the killer. Believing that God has assigned him the task, Ray sets out to track Billy down.
Billy stows away on a train heading to San Jose, home of Molly Ferguson, a young woman with whom he had a relationship a year prior. With Ray in close pursuit, Billy reaches the Ferguson ranch and sneaks inside to talk to Molly. Meanwhile, Ray encounters a group of Texas Rangers with a warrant for Billy's arrest. Ray aids them as they storm the ranch, chasing Billy and shooting him, whereupon he falls from a cliff into a river. Ray returns to the ranch and finds out the rangers are actually hired guns, and they have killed everyone except Molly, whom they have taken captive. Thinking Billy is dead, Ray questions whether he may have been wrong about the murders, and vows to redeem himself by saving Molly.
Meanwhile, Billy survives his fall but loses his medallion. He is nursed back to health by an Apache Native American named Calm Water, who advises him to accept who he is and embrace his destiny. However, the hired guns arrive, killing Calm Water and taking Billy captive. Meanwhile, Ray learns they are heading to Juarez, prompting him to muse "so, the events have come full circle."
In a cell in Juarez, Billy meets Juan 'Juarez' Mendoza, for whom the hired guns work. He reveals he is Billy's father, explaining that about seventeen years prior, the pregnant Marisa stole the medallion and left him for Thomas. As the medallion is the key to locating the gold, Mendoza has been searching for it ever since. Billy says he lost the medallion in the river, but Mendoza doesn't believe him and sends him out into the desert, threatening to kill Molly if Billy fails to find the gold within an hour. Using his memory of the shape of the medallion and a story Marisa told him as a child, Billy locates the gold, but Mendoza follows and attempts to kill him. Billy flees and is rescued by Ray, who tells him to get to safety as he saves Molly. Ray then reveals his backstory. He and Thomas both fell in love with Marisa shortly after meeting her, even though she was Mendoza's woman. She chose Thomas over Ray, fleeing to the caverns in which the gold was hidden, but Ray tracked them down. Their younger brother, William, a priest, attempted to intervene, but Ray killed him in a panic over the assumption that he was reaching for a gun, but it was a Bible. On that day, he renounced violence and embraced God. Accepting that the gold is cursed, he, Marisa, and Thomas left it behind and sealed the cavern.