I can think of very few trilogies that feel as inconsistent as Flying wild Hog’s take on Shadow Warrior. The setting, characters, and tone remain consistent between each entry but the gameplay either evolves or devolves – depending on your tastes. The first – and still my favourite – is a somewhat dated and overlong corridor-FPS, with a surprising amount of narrative depth, levels packed with secrets, and gunplay that revolves around kiting enemies and picking the right gun for the right foe. The sequel went for a cooperative Diablo/Borderlands-ish approach, with a focus on tearing through hordes of enemies in procedurally generated environments (sort-of), with a large selection of firearms to modify. As a consequence, level design and narrative felt like an afterthought.
With Shadow Warrior 3, they’ve produced a brisk single-player-only experience, doubled down on the narrative elements, and gone for a razer-sharp focus on arena-style battles interspersed with free-running platforming segments. The result is a satisfying but short-lived sequel.
If Shadow Warrior 2’s story managed to hold your attention, you might remember a giant dragon emerging from a portal between worlds and attacking Lo Wang. Turns out this giant beast is the egg-laying mother of all the demons you battled in the prior games and swiftly sets about destroying what’s left of the world (now the second apocalypse Wang has triggered). The surviving ancients – gone; Zilla City and its human inhabitants – gone; the Wang Cave – reduced to a wreck perched on top of a cliff. A prologue that gets you up to speed on the new gameplay loop recounts Wang’s failed attempts to defeat the dragon, leaving him disillusioned and his mojo lost. Zilla remerges with a plan to use Hoji’s mask to infuse a weapon that could destroy the dragon and, in the absence of any better ideas, Lo Wang sets off with him.
What follows is a 5-6-ish hour adventure as Wang and his “allies” – including a resurrected Hoji that has ditched all character growth seen in the first game – try, fail, and try again to defeat the dragon. Despite the number of cutscenes and plenty of in-game dialogue, the narrative feels shallow and only serves to direct Wang between cool locations. I’m assuming it was a deliberate choice to avoid alienating new players, but you’ll have to dig into unlocked lore entries to fill the gap between Shadow Warrior 3 and its predecessors. The game does build up to a satisfying showdown but ends on a low note, with little indication of what’s next for the survivors or where the IP could go next.
To be fair, most of my nit-picks about the narrative only came to mind after the credits rolled as the gameplay is fun – if derivative. If Shadow Warrior 2 looked to Diablo and Borderlands for inspiration, Shadow Warrior 3 has been inspired by Doom Eternal’s frenetic, bloody arena battles and streamlined character upgrades. Now, that’s not a bad thing. Thanks to Shadow Warrior 3’s irreverent tone, style, and brevity, I found the formulaic succession of artificial combat arenas – with clear traversal routes, respawning ammunition and health pick-ups, and variants of exploding barrels – more tolerable than those in Doom Eternal. Everything feels streamlined or deliberate – such as the limited ammunition reserves – to keep your focus on the minute-to-minute action and never allow you to fall back on overpowered weapons or character upgrades that remove the need for skill.
There are only six weapons, but each can be upgraded three times with increasingly powerful and specialised abilities. The Riot Gun (think shotgun) can become a fully-automatic, reload-free death-dealer – but is only useful at close range. The Sidekicks (twin submachine guns) do minimal damage, but shocking rounds allow you to stun enemies before switching to more powerful weapons or moving in close with your elementally-infused Dragontail katana. The Basilisk swiftly became my favourite – a high-powered, charge-up rail gun that can eventually pierce through multiple enemies and inflict a freezing blast on contact. Player upgrades are equally streamlined, improving your single chi-push ability, resilience, the frequency of resource spawns, and your ability to inflict environmental damage.
The sensation of movement and combat is not as loose as in Shadow Warrior 2, but a new wall-running ability and grapple hook that you unlock in the opening mission allow you to tear around combat arenas with ease. As in Doom Eternal (and 2016’s Doom before that), enemies are most deadly when you’re standing still. Gunplay and movement go hand-in-hand as you keep moving to avoid damage, switching between the optimal weapon (with a convenient slow-down effect), picking off priority targets, and gathering resource drops from enemies or the environment.
Shadow Warrior 3 even has a form of “glory kills”, which you can pull off after collecting orbs that fill up a “finisher” meter (filling more slots allows you to insta-kill bigger demons, just like Doom Eternal’s chainsaw mechanic). Pulling off a finisher move unlocks a “Gory Tool” based on the target. This might be a simple health boost from a lesser foe, an overpowered but limited-use weapon from larger demons, or a devastating explosive. These systems come together to create a satisfying combat loop that has you treating enemies as both a threat and potential resource. On the highest difficulty, it becomes vital to preserve your finishers to instantly kill tough opponents or quickly restore your health mid-battle.
When you’re not fighting, you’re traversing linear platforming sequences filled with banter. These sections make full use of Wang’s double-jump, air-dash, and grapple to great effect, with some epic escape and chase sequences. They’re never too tough but a few felt like an exercise in trial-and-error, with minimal environmental cues, made worse by checkpoints that often send you right back to the beginning of these sequences. The implementation of these abilities felt best during boss fights, which combine conventional arena combat with the need to nimbly avoid massively damaging attacks or grapple towards a weak point.
Unfortunately, Shadow Warrior 3’s level design is incredibly linear, with only a few brief diversions that reward weapon- or character-upgrade orbs. Spotting these can be a challenge but they never take you far off the beaten path to unique locations or optional battles. As a result, the short runtime is compounded by a lack of replayability – outside of a list of combat-based challenges that also reward upgrade orbs once completed. Honestly, this might be for the best as the gameplay loop and formulaic level design would quickly run out of steam.
Shadow Warrior 3 looks and sounds fantastic as you violently eliminate hordes of demons. I’m not sure why they needed to transition to Unreal Engine 4 – Shadow Warrior 2 still looks incredible – but an unremarkable prologue quickly transitions into a beautiful opening mission and the environments only get more spectacular from then on. Both Wang’s allies and the Yokai-inspired demons are wonderfully distinctive, detailed, and fluidly animated. The gore is excessive – especially when performing a finisher – but still cartoonish. For current-gen console owners, there’s currently no optimised version but you do get a rock-solid framerate and fast loading times.
The dialogue, which shifts from cringeworthy to hilarious the further you progress, is well-delivered and Lo Wang is finally voiced by Asian-American actor Mike Moh. It’s a much-needed change and he does a great job of keeping it consistent with the prior games. Now, the Shadow Warrior games have always had great soundtracks and the third game is no exception. There’s a far greater number of tracks with a fantastical feel to them befitting the magic-infused setting and colourful combat.
Wrapping up, I’m a little conflicted about Shadow Warrior 3 despite the positives. Each game has redefined the core gameplay loop, so it’s hard to simply say “if you enjoyed the prior game you’ll enjoy this” (especially if you picked up Shadow Warrior 2 for the 4-player coop). However, I enjoyed what’s on offer as it’s razer-focussed, fun, looks and sounds great, and the game doesn’t overstay its welcome. That said, it’s over incredibly quickly, with little replay incentive beyond tackling higher difficulties, and is sold at almost full price. Given the stiff competition in the same launch window, this is one for die-hard fans at launch and a wait-for-a-sale pick for everyone else.
- Developer: Flying Wild Hog
- Publisher: Devolver Digital
- Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows
Shadow Warrior 3 was reviewed on the Xbox Eco Platform of Games Systems
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