Narcos: Rise of the Cartels

Colombia’s cocaine war becomes a lean, violent tactical campaign where every gunfight feeds a larger struggle for money, influence, and control. Narcos: Rise of the Cartels adapts the Netflix series into a turn-based strategy game set amid the Medellín Cartel’s rise during the 1980s. Players choose between building Pablo Escobar’s criminal empire or joining the DEA effort to dismantle it, with familiar faces including Javier Peña, Steve Murphy, and cartel lieutenants appearing as playable leaders. The tone is harsh and pulpy rather than glamorous, focusing on ambushes, corruption, and the human cost behind each operation.

Missions play out across compact urban streets, rural compounds, and recognizable locations inspired by the show, where squads trade fire, secure objectives, and eliminate priority targets. Each side recruits class-based operatives with distinct weapons and battlefield jobs, then improves their skills as the campaign progresses. Combat uses an unusual flexible-turn structure: instead of moving every unit once and ending the turn, you can activate fighters in a chosen order and sometimes act repeatedly with the same character, opening room for aggressive flanks and last-second rescues. At key moments, the game shifts into a direct third-person aiming view, letting you manually line up a kill shot or counterattack for extra damage.

Its strongest idea is the two-sided campaign structure, which gives the conflict different stakes depending on whether you are protecting an empire or pursuing it. Leader units bring powerful perks and recognizable personalities, while the manual shooting sequences add a more immediate edge than the usual overhead tactics format. The presentation captures the show’s locations and atmosphere, though mission design can feel straightforward and the tactical depth does not always match genre heavyweights such as XCOM 2. Fans of Narcos who want a brisk, story-led strategy spin-off will get the most from it, while dedicated tactics veterans should approach it as an accessible, experimental take on squad combat rather than a deep simulation.