Shallow Warrior.
The previous Shadow Warrior games were created from various sources of inspiration, from Duke Nukem to Doom 2016. Each action-packed game was filled to the brim with humor that hit about as often as your frantic aim. Lo Wang and his penchant for dick jokes and crass humor defined the series while also accompanied by its kinetic and gory gameplay that consistently offered up a fun and blood-thirsty pace. While I adored the 2013 Shadow Warrior reboot, it was its 2016 follow-up that made me really take notice; filled with large explorable environments, nearly 80 weapons, and the ability for four-player co-op. Shadow Warrior 3; however, takes all of that away and instead offers up a vastly slimmed down and straight-to-the-point linear experience that while enjoyable for how long it lasts, is a shadow of its former self.
After hearing that this adventure would set me back around 8-10 hours, I was rather shocked when I rolled credits some 5 hours in. Shadow Warrior 3 consistently felt like the final act of what might have been a much larger and more expansive experience. The game is paced in a way where it doesn’t overstay its welcome, but also a game where I was sort of craving just a bit more than what was here. Shadow Warrior 2 had a ton of enemy variety and the weapons to match, but this third entry trims its weapon count down to only seven instruments of destruction and while there is a nice variety in the environments, you’re going to see the same few enemy types fill those arenas over and over again. I did enjoy my time here, but it honestly just made me want to play Shadow Warrior 2 again.
Shadow Warrior 3 has a wild pacing to it that consistently holds up, even amongst the wealth of cutscenes that detail Lo Wang’s efforts to stop a dragon from destroying what’s left of the world. You’re given a grappling hook in which Lo Wang comments that “everyone has one nowadays” and when you combine that with the ability to wall-run, you are given a blistering speed in which to engage in combat and the platforming between that breaks up those bloody encounters. Shadow Warrior 3 doesn’t feature any additional activities, side quests, or in-depth explorable areas, apart from maybe a dead end or two that hides the odd upgrade item. What you have here is a game that is focused solely on pushing you forward as fast as humanly possible, and it’s often to the detriment of the adventure and the game’s overall short length.
Shadow Warrior 3 starts a short while after the events of the previous game with a dragon emerging into our world and subsequently wreaking havoc. I was curious as to why they skipped over the context of the dragon when it pertained to the prior game’s finale. This was likely an attempt to skip over information they were not going to pay off here story-wise, but it does undercut the lead up from the previous game and makes “that” sacrifice have no meaning now. The game sees the return of both Orochi Zilla and Hoji, as well as newcomer, Motoko, who, despite being featured prominently in the trailer, is here for all of maybe ten minutes. Apart from Motoko’s raccoon, that is the entire cast of characters featured here in any capacity, complete with a new cast behind the voice of Lo Wang and Zilla, who all are rather enjoyable and keep in tone to what the game and series has always offered.
In keeping to the game’s more simplistic design, you’ll wield a Katana, Outlaw (revolver), Riot Gun (shotgun), Side Kicks (dual uzi’s), Crimson Bull (grenade launcher), Basilisk (rail gun), and finally, the Shuriken Spitter, a crossbow which launches out spinning buzzsaw blades that cause a damn bloody mess. Each weapon can be upgraded to add more ammo, elemental effects, and various other enhancements to make them far more lethal. While there isn’t a bad weapon out of the bunch, this is a far cry from Shadow Warrior 2’s nearly 80 weapons, even if half of them were more or less just ok. If these 7 available weapons had in-depth skill trees to take them down wildly different paths to make them unique to each player, then I could easily say the limited set of guns here offered at least some variety, but the limitation of their three upgrades are static and there just isn’t any level of depth here.
Still, as I’ve said, there isn’t a bad weapon on offer; however, I did find myself constantly swapping between the Sidekicks and the Crimson Bull, as well as cutting anything that got close to me with the Katana, even if doesn't have the weight to its swings that I think would have sold me on it a lot more than it currently does. Alongside your arsenal, you’ll have some environmental hazards such as elemental barrels, and you can also trigger buzzsaw traps to ground-up enemies into a fine red mist or use Lo Wang’s Chi-Blast to push enemies into spikes or over cliffsides as well, giving you a variable toolset of mayhem, even if it’s largely basic in its offerings. Pulling a page out of Doom 2016, you also have finisher kills that have you snapping necks, gouging eyes, or in the case of the more larger foes, being able to remove pieces of them to use as weapons, such as pulling out a tracker eye that hunts down targets, a smashy hammer, a flashy disco grenade that emits as much light as its does death, or a sword that pulls you towards your foe for some extremely satisfying slicing and dicing.
As I mentioned before, weapons can be upgraded to give them a bit more kick when the challenge inevitably calls for it. Depending on how many upgrade orbs you are able to find to upgrade your weapons, and where you’ll allocate them, will detail just exactly how deadly your weapon of choice will become. The first tier costs one orb, the second is worth two, and the final one is worth four. So, if you do the math, there are 49 orbs needed to upgrade each gun. In my first playthrough, I earned just over 20, which allowed me to upgrade my Katana and Sidekicks to max level and a few other guns to at least include more ammo, because you will need it.
Now, orbs are not just laying about as many of them are earned through a series of challenges that you’ll take on as you defeat enemies in a manner of different ways. However; since areas have a finite number of enemies, it isn’t possible to grind out those challenges as easily as there is no way to “find” enemies outside of the various set pieces that are along your story path. There also is no way to chapter select, and there currently is no new game plus mode on offer, but it is possible that we may see patches and additional content roll out down the road that offers such avenues of being able to grind out challenges or getting more out of the combat such as a battle arena or the like.
Such as you can use orbs to upgrade your weapons, Lo Wang has a different set of orbs, pun not intended, that can be used to upgrade his own abilities as well. You can sink points into your Chi-Blast, allowing you to blast away foes and its subsequent upgrade tiers allow you to push away larger threats. You can also upgrade his health, earning passive healing regeneration for the final upgrade, as well as more ways to efficiently earn resources for health and ammo. You can upgrade how effective environmental hazards are, such as how barrels affect enemies, although, this is an odd “character” upgrade, but I guess they had to put it somewhere.
A large focus of Shadow Warrior 3 is about movement, and this is where the grappling hook and wall running come into play, not to mention a double jump, dash, and slide. Much like Doom 2016, and even more so with Doom Eternal, you'll constantly be moving around the environment using your bag of tricks to come out on top. From shooting object triggers to drop the floor beneath you, swinging upwards via your grappling hook while you cut a floating enemy in the air, combat has a finesse to it that succeeds in creating a very enjoyable combat loop. While I certainly have my issues with the depth of what the game offers, the feel of the gameplay is constantly rewarding and keeps you on your toes, even if some factors start to make the game's loop feel a bit too repetitive. It's not something I feel is drastically apparent or distracting to sour my time here, but it is worth pointing out.
As you move through each zone, you'll be introduced to new enemies, with usually one new one for each biome change. This doesn't always keep up; however, and while the selection of enemies is well designed and varied between those designs, you'll see a lot of the same enemies populate multiple encounters, almost in parity with one another. I lost track of the number of times the drill-equipped Mogura Twins would end an encounter, and while tearing them to pieces and snatching their drill during a finisher was always satisfying, so many encounters do start to show the few enemies this game has and the groupings featured again and again. All that said, I do enjoy several designs, such as the sword-equipped Hattori, or the Gassy Obaryion that hides a massively powerful gun in their belly, ready to pull it out with a well-timed finisher.
The game also only features two boss encounters with one being against a well… let’s just say the name is perfectly in line with Wang’s desire for dick jokes. The encounter in question has an intriguing twist and was a delight to take on. The final battle itself was alright, but given the context surrounding what it is, It felt less like a boss fight and more like an environmental puzzle that just happens to have a health bar. The lack of a true villain here does lessen that as the dragon is more of a force than a character itself. With how clever a lot of the design work here is for its enemy types, and especially that first boss, It’s a shame we didn’t get more creative choices for more powerful encounters.
While there isn’t a native version of Shadow Warrior 3 to the PS5 or Series X/S, the enhancements that these consoles bring to their previous-gen conversions allow for some super-quick loading and a pretty solid framerate. I didn’t notice any sort of performance issues running the game on PS5, and while the reveal trailer for the title way back when certainly looked better than what we have here, the visuals don’t really disappoint as every enemy, environment, or gory finisher looks visually impressive and solid. Given the nature of how fast you are meant to move around the battlefield, the game certainly seems to hold up extremely well and it was nice to play a new game that didn’t have constant bugs or issues getting in the way of the experience.
Shadow Warrior 3 on its own is a fast-paced gory shooter that is a blast to play. I still feel it lacks greatly behind Shadow Warrior 2 and does feel like a huge step backward. The game is essentially one long hallway of encounters broken up with some enjoyable platforming due to the wall running and grappling hook mechanics. The weapons are satisfying to use, the enemies have some great designs and mechanics, and tearing them apart for some additional weapon types is a welcome new addition. I do wish the adventure lasted a bit longer with more to do to justify the price as while it is not the full AAA expense to pony up for, it is a very singular and short experience nonetheless. Shadow Warrior 3 is definitely lesser of an experience than I was hoping for but is still satisfying in its own way, delivering a fun, albeit shallow experience, that brings us more Wang coming your way.
Developer - Flying Wild Hog. Publisher - Devolver Digital. Released - March 1st, 2022. Available On - Xbox One/SeriesX/S, PlayStation 4/5, Windows. Rated - (M) Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mild Sexual Themes, Strong Language. Platform Reviewed - PlayStation 5. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.