About
Call of Juarez: The Cartel is the third entry in Techland's Call of Juarez series, built on the Chrome Engine 5. Unlike the Old West setting of earlier games, it is a modern-day crime story following three law-enforcement agents through Los Angeles and Mexico in pursuit of a drug cartel, with a three-player co-op mode where each character pursues hidden personal agendas. It was widely panned at release for rushed, glitchy mechanics, weak writing, and tone-deaf stereotypes, and was later delisted from Steam in March 2018.
Identity
Launch
- Binary
- CoJ_TheCartel.exe
- Options
- %command%
- Needs files
- none beyond the binary
Proton
- Version
- GE-Proton
- Winetricks
- —
- ProtonDB
- ProtonDB Gold runs perfectly after tweaks
⚙ Setup notes
Game: Techland's 2011 modern-day western shooter on Chrome Engine 5; Steam appid 33420, delisted March 2018.
Proton: Runs under Proton — use GE-Proton (or proton_experimental) for the smoothest boot. Main executable is CoJ_TheCartel.exe.
DRM: The game ships the Ubisoft/Uplay launcher, which is the usual point of failure: let it run once to register, allow it to go offline, and dismiss its update prompt. Activation of an existing key is required.
Controller: Native XInput controller support — the Steam Deck gamepad is detected as an Xbox pad with no extra config.
Mod: A community Overhaul Mod raises FOV to 68 vertical, fixes weapon-model clipping at high FOV, unlocks all weapons, smooths the sluggish movement and removes motion blur. Install it into the game dir before first launch.
The one thing to know
Supply your own copy: Delisted commercial game (Steam appid 33420, removed March 2018) — supply your own copy; key activation through the Ubisoft launcher is still required.
DRM: Uses the Ubisoft Game Launcher (Uplay), not GFWL; the launcher is the most common failure point — run it once to register, let it go offline, and dismiss the update prompt.
Controller: Native XInput controller support, so the Deck pad works out of the box.
Mod: The Overhaul Mod (FOV/weapon/motion-blur fixes) is recommended.
Status: ProtonDB reports for The Cartel are sparse (only a few, low confidence) but trend Gold — best reported Platinum. Still flagged needs-test until confirmed on-device; sibling Chrome Engine titles also run well under Proton.
Community guides
Write-ups and threads from people who got this (or a similar) game running. deckport links to them — it doesn't reproduce them.
Get the artwork
deckport never hosts game images. Open this game on SteamGridDB, pick
the cover / hero / logo / icon you like, and drop them into the
game folder under .deckport-art/ before you push it to the
Deck. The importer files them under the right names automatically.
Run it on your Deck
Two files: the one-time importer (deckport.py) in your
Deck's home folder, and this game's install helper. Copy the game
into ~/Games and run the helper with Steam closed — it
writes the recipe (binary, launch options, Proton version)
and registers the shortcut with artwork.