6.5 hours played
Written 17 days ago
It's fine? Shadow Warrior 3 is a perfectly serviceable "go fast and shoot things" kinda game, with most enemies appearing in arenas where you can platform, stunt and shoot all over the place. You got your katana and several weapons, like a Revolver and Shotgun or even a Shuriken Spitter, and several enemy types trying to stop you, Wang, while you are on your way to stop the end of the world. And while Shadow Warrior 1 was a straightforward, fantastic boomer shooter and Shadow Warrior 2 was a randomly generated looter shooter hodgepodge, Shadow Warrior 3 is a Doom 2016 / Doom Eternal Clone with arena fights, finishers and platforming.
As one may be used to with Shadow Warrior, the story is full of bad jokes, dated pop culture references and Wang making a Wang out of himself. It lacks a bit of "zing" in this game and often feels more like "hello fellow kids" than anything else, but whatever. After about 6 hours of going through 11 (admittedly often very beautiful) set pieces, it's over and that's kind of it.
It looks good, though it often lacks a bit of polish, and the game plays fine, but it just lacks a bit of variety in gameplay and upgrades, and is way too short to really leave any impact. It just kind of made me want to play Doom Eternal again, because it often feels like the same game, down to the platforming. And it works, it's fun, but it also left me wanting a bit more than it delivered, if that makes sense. If you want to hack'n'slash some demons and listen to soul-hurting dialogue for a few hours, then Shadow Warrior 3 delivers, but don't expect much more than that - a serviceable, if slightly lacking, shooter that just makes me wish that the franchise would return to its great roots.