Call of Juarez

Lore & Background

The original Call of Juarez tells the story of Reverend Ray McCall as he hunts down his nephew Billy, who has been wrongly accused of murdering his parents. The player controls alternating protagonists level-by-level: Billy's levels are partially stealth-based, while Ray's are more traditional shoot 'em ups. Ray is stronger and slower, can take more damage, and can rapid-fire a single pistol (fanning) and wield a Bible. Billy can sneak, perform silent kills, and use a bow and whip; using the bow triggers slow motion. The game features a 'Concentration mode' slow-motion technique.

Reader's Guide

Call of Juarez is significant as the foundational title of a franchise that would span four games, though its sales were modest: 137,000 units in North America across PC and Xbox 360. However, its European sales were considerably better, with Techland crediting the game as putting them 'on the map'. The game received mixed critical reactions, and its setting and mechanics established the Wild West theme that later entries would revisit after the modern-day detour of The Cartel. The game was released on GOG.com in November 2018.

Did You Know?

• The game was created by Paweł Selinger in 2006.
• It sold only 137,000 units in North America but performed better in Europe.
• Billy can use a bow and whip, while Ray can fan a pistol and quote from a Bible.

A Shifting Competitive Landscape

The 2000s witnessed a dramatic reshuffling of the console market that defined the era in which Call of Juarez emerged. Sega, once Nintendo's fiercest rival through the 1980s and 1990s, exited the hardware business in 2001 after the underperformance of the Saturn and Dreamcast lines, pivoting back to third-party publishing. Meanwhile, Microsoft made a bold entry into the home console space, debuting the Xbox at the 2000 Game Developers Conference after years of industry speculation. The PlayStation 2, launched in 2000, went on to become the best-selling console of all time, while the Xbox clawed its way to second place largely on the strength of its launch title. Nintendo's GameCube, released in 2001, found itself in third place for the first time in the company's history. This three-way battle between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo created the intensely competitive environment that shaped every title released during the decade, including western-themed shooters seeking to carve out their own identity in a crowded marketplace.

The Push Toward Immersion and Realism

The 2000s marked a pivotal transition in visual technology, moving away from the low-resolution polygonal graphics that characterized the 1990s and toward high-definition rendering. This era placed increasing emphasis on crafting immersive, interactive environments, implementing realistic physics simulations, and advancing artificial intelligence for non-player characters. The sixth-generation consoles already represented a significant leap over their fifth-generation predecessors in 3D graphical capability, while the seventh generation brought widespread HD-ready graphics as a standard expectation. For a title like Call of Juarez, which sought to transport players into a vividly rendered frontier landscape, these technological advances were essential. The ability to create convincing open environments, believable character behavior, and physically responsive interactions transformed what was possible in action games, setting a new benchmark for how players experienced narrative-driven shooting experiences across both the PlayStation 2 and the emerging next-generation platforms.

The Rise of Connected Gaming

One of the defining shifts of the 2000s was the transformation of gaming from a largely solitary or local-multiplayer experience into a connected, always-online phenomenon. The Dreamcast had pioneered console internet play, but it was Microsoft's Xbox Live, launched in November 2002, that made online gaming commercially viable for the mainstream. Featuring broadband connectivity and downloadable content, Xbox Live became a massive success and set the template for the rest of the decade. As the years progressed, internet connectivity became ubiquitous across all platforms, and the seventh generation ensured online services were available on every major console. For players of Call of Juarez and similar action titles, this meant the possibility of shared experiences, competitive multiplayer, and a broader community of players engaging with the same frontier setting simultaneously. The infrastructure that made such connected play possible was a product of the industry's rapid evolution throughout the decade.

Consoles as Multimedia Powerhouses

By the 2000s, video game consoles had evolved far beyond their original purpose as dedicated gaming machines. After the Xbox and PlayStation 2, a clear industry trend emerged: pushing consoles into the role of media centers, offering features well beyond gameplay. Built-in DVD players and hard drives became common fixtures, and backward compatibility—allowing players to run titles from a previous generation—became a standard expectation, with the PlayStation 2 being the first major system to offer this. The mid-decade also saw the industry caught in the HD DVD versus Blu-ray format war, ultimately won by Blu-ray, which the PlayStation 3 adopted. Nintendo took a different path, focusing on innovative gameplay and motion-sensitive controllers rather than media features. This broader context of consoles as multimedia hubs shaped the player experience and the expectations that titles like Call of Juarez had to meet in terms of production value and presentation.