In December 1998 the Spellbound team began with the development of their second original game. It was designed to be a real time strategy game and was supposed to take place in a location, which at that time had not been exploited in computer games to a large extent before: The Wild West. The game was called
Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive and it turned out to be Spellbound’s biggest success and most critically acclaimed title so far. The game received praise from the press for its AI and an innovation called "Quick Actions" which allowed the player to plan their moves in advance.
Just like the first part of "Airline Tycoon", "Desperados" was distributed by Infogrames (ATARI). In 2001 it was at the top of the game ratings (charts) in some countries for several weeks. The game’s cinematics won the "Animago award" in 2001 and the game itself is still ranked second in the "all-time-best-list" of the German magazine "PC-Games" in the category for strategy games.
An expansion to "Desperados" featuring new locations and characters was supposed to follow but was not released due to reasons which have not been completely uncovered up to today. Supposedly, there were company politics involved on publisher Infogrames’ side which involved budget and market focus. Ever since, some fans of "Desperados" have been waiting and yearning for an add-on or a sequel to the game. Another term that is often mentioned in this context is the so-called "Webisodes". These were additional levels Spellbound had planned to release via their website – possibly instead of a full-size add-on – to allow players of "Desperados" to continue the gaming experience.
Due to the success of "Desperados", Spellbound was able to expand its team. To be able to ensure a smooth game production with the increased team, the company introduced a form of "Extreme Programming" (a.k.a. "XP") to the development process in 2001, which was adjusted to the needs of game production. This "XP" process was introduced by technical director
Stéphane Becker.
The first game created using these new methods was
Robin Hood: Die Legende von Sherwood ("Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood"). "Robin Hood" was produced in cooperation with the French publisher
Wanadoo Edition, today known as
MC2.
For "Robin Hood" the Spellbound team refined the techniques which had been developed for "Desperados". The 2D-engine "Desperados" had used was improved and a new system of compression for sprites was introduced. All sprites were equipped with dynamic lighting processes and the "Quick Actions" were extended considerably.
"Robin Hood" was released in 2002. The game achieved top scores of up to 96% (Gen 4) in the press. "Robin Hood" could also repeat the success of "Desperados", in particular because of its cinematics which won the "Animago Award" as well.
In 2003 Spellbound Entertainment Ltd. expanded its product range by two more genres. The company published its first action adventure with
Chicago 1930 and its first shooter with
Rauchende Colts ("Smoking Colts"). By releasing "Rauchende Colts" Spellbound entered the market segment of low budget games.
Additionally Spellbound Entertainment Ltd. appeared as publisher of its own products for the first time by releasing "Rauchende Colts" and "Airline Tycoon Deluxe" in 2003.
Both the company and the press were not pleased with the game "Chicago 1930". It did not meet the former’s expectations in sales. As a consequence, Spellbound released a large portion of the team who worked on the title. The core team of the original "Desperados" stayed with the company. Among the employees who were laid off were Stéphane Becker,
Jean-Michel Stenger and
Martin Kuppe who went on to found a new company in Strasburg called
Creative Patterns which employed most of the original "Desperados" team members.
In 2003, Spellbound began production of its first 3D real-time game, the sequel to "Desperados". Featuring an all new 3D engine, two perspectives (isometric and third person), a new character as well as new abilities for all heroes and new Western sets and developed by a new team,
Desperados 2: Cooper’s Revenge was longingly awaited by fans of the original. Published by ATARI, the game was released in Germany on April 27th 2006.
Right after the completion of
Desperados 2: Cooper’s Revenge production of an add-on titled "Desperados 2: Conspiracies" began. Shortly before production was complete, publisher
Atari pulled out and left the team stranded with an almost finished game. Just like the add-on of its predecessor, the Desperados 2 Add-on was threatened to be never released despite being nearly complete. Luckily, Spellbound found a new publisher in Russia,
Noviy Disk. Finally, German publisher
digital tainment pool (dtp) brought the game to Germany and released it under their
Anaconda label on June 6th, 2007.