Shadow Warrior 3 is the third installation of the Shadow Warrior trilogy. Unfortunately, it was also the weakest child of the family. While I mostly enjoyed it, there are several issues that just brings the game down a grade. There are some bugs that are quite annoying, unlimited waves of enemies until I had to reload the checkpoint, some wall clipping issues, issues that didn't even exist in Shadow Warrior 1 and 2. The story was really short as well. Nonetheless, this game is action-packed and I love the gore that fills my whole screen up. I love the weapon choices and upgrades, they complement the game really well. I got this game heavily discounted so I got my worth out of it. I would recommend this game if you are looking for some mindless fun, although it was only satisfactory because we had such banger games in Shadow Warrior 1 and 2.

Today, I woke up with a peculiar desire to obliterate my senses by shoving all sorts of indulgent, flamboyant, and immensely, IMMENSELY STUPID trash through my eyeballs until I am so oversaturated with stimuli that Dear Esther will seem like a inviting experience.

Well, for this particular task i chose the very mediocre Shadow Warrior 3, a game that, despite not being the most tempting tool in the box, somehow fulfills its role of cheap entertainment with respectable efficiency.

It’s not a game so bad that it’s good. It’s a good game that is bad.

But it’s good.

But it’s pretty bad too.

Anyway...

SW3 crowns (so far) the modest list of halfway decent titles developed by Flying Wild Hog, having the dubious distinction of being one of the most fun and least problematic (Yes, that's right) games made by the studio.

And i'm not exaggerating, given that i played all of them (More than once, for some obscure reason) and I'm still waiting for the time when they will really hit the mark like they almost did in the original version of Hard Reset.

Of all of them, Shadow Warrior 3, frankly, might be the one I had the least trouble getting into. Not because it is particularly well-made, polished, or innovative (Quite the contrary), but because the other games from the studio, especially the previous Shadow Warrior titles, usually have problems so inseparable from the experience that by elimination, SW3 tends to always be the most tempting option in the collection, even though, in good conscience, there is no really valid reason to waste time with it when you have Doom, Serious Sam, Ultrakill, and the like available.

I do this because I am an idiot who likes to punish my brain by wasting my free time with partially enjoyable garbage. Judge me.

I don't know. I believe that the simplification (Or complete removal) of various mechanical elements present in previous games in favor of a more tendonitis-friendly combat experience, along with the very short duration and the ease of picking up the game and simply starting a brainless, guilty fun, allowed the game to work for me more than the others.

SW1 rebooted the franchise, rescued old design principles, gave a fresh coat of paint to a dated action game structure, without giving up the satisfying simplicity (And inherent stupidity) of turning hordes of enemies into minced meat and bloody clouds, while listening to catchphrases from an dumb charismatic protagonist.

They made a safe, solid, humorous, and straightforward game that knew its appeal. They managed to create an FPS with powers where melee was an integral part of the combat and not an irrelevant and unsatisfying appendage.

And the game even reached dramatic and somber notes through its narrative, given the sarcastic, juvenile, and cynical nature of the experience. Some things even sounded poetic.

But the game suffers from unnecessarily long duration, further dragged by the ever-increasing repetition of the same tired setups with few extremely spongy enemies; Even worse boss fights; Horribly weak weapons and very bad feedback; Mediocre level design that barely utilized the simple player moveset; An annoying progression system, full of completely inconsequential numerical increments; And noticeable lack of challenge even at higher difficulties.

I always felt that the game runs out of steam a few hours before it ends. The last stages are frustratingly exhausting, contaminating almost the entire experience. Despite liking the game and considering it the best game of the trilogy, I rarely enjoy revisiting it because of this.

SW2 improved a lot of things. It expanded the character's mobility, added several different weapon options, introduced a Diablo-style itemization and a “build” system, and... changed the entire structure and combat dynamics into a brain-dead meat grinder (And percentage optimization), without charm and personality and, ironically, even more exhausting than the previous game.

The sequel seems to be a better game in many ways. The graphics and mechanics took a huge leap in quality. But it's a much worse experience. All the additions only served to clutter the experience, rather than elevate it to previously unattainable heights. They just added fat.

Shadow Warrior 3 abandoned almost all the previous qualities and took another route, opting for a more bread-and-butter don't-stop-moving-even-for-a-second approach. It became an ultralinear, barely readable, intense and chaotic arena shooter, which essentially funnels the experience into fights in inconsistently designed and generally not very creative spaces, ranging from open arenas full of traps, verticality, and navigation options (grapple hook, wallruns, etc.) to super tight generic squares inadequate for the game’s combat and movement (And where you can even fall off the edges); Simplistic exploration and platforming segments; Occasional set-pieces that are glorified QTEs disguised as traversal challenges; And cutscenes, a huge amount of terrible prerendered cutscenes that present a story so lazy and irrelevant that it doesn't deserve a chance.

Lo Wang lost his mojo in SW2 and could barely nail a good one-liner, but now he's turned into an insufferable Marvel-esque cartoon who never stops talking. The intelligence factor somehow seems to have dropped another 5 points.

But the gameplay became more fluid and loose, with that liberating and rewarding responsiveness, which, although existing, was not much demanded by the previous games. The game finally reached a pleasant mechanical level, condensing the action into a slightly more wearing, but much more focused and unrelenting experience, with a more impactful and efficient gunplay and some creative additions mixing concepts from other games in favor of the more consolidated elements of the franchise.

The dynamics are not the best, but the game's simplicity and short length (And instant replays) made the low variety of enemies better utilized, occasionally even managing to project some degree of strategic dimension in the fights.

Melee stopped being the core of combat and became just a complementary tool and chi was reduced to just a single attack. The rest (The grind-based rpg system) was discarded. For the better, I would say.

It’s blatantly fun. Much more than it deserves to be. The straightforward pace allowed the game to become a sharp compilation of small doses of adrenaline and spectacle that evoke a much less polished and brainless version of the elegant Doom Eternal experience, but much faster and accessible. It's a shallow experience, but it works when it works. For better or worse, it’s simply easier to get into it than into the other games of the franchise. The challenge, the speed, the pace and the uncompromising fun is much more appetizing.

And the art direction is worthy of the book.

BUT i also never expected much from these games. For me, in the best case scenario, SW3 would be something mediocre. In that way, i would say i was even surprised by how much I enjoyed the game. I beat it three times on GamePass. Bought it here and i'm beating it again. And i will probably continue to do this sporadically.

At best, Shadow Warrior 3 is a partially enjoyable trash and you should definitely play something else. But play it anyway.


P.S: The performance is still bad, even after the release of the definitive edition. For me, turning off the instant replay solved the stuttering problem.

P.S.2: Hardcore. Mute the voice volume. Turn off subtitles. Skip ALL cutscenes. Enjoy.

P.S.3: The OST is fantastic. You'll never know if you try to listen to it through the game, where it sounds little in evidence.

Fun game. Good story. Extremely short. They added a parkour element, but they didn't really combine it with the shooting aspect, so it's pretty much just added filler for getting from point A to point B. The enemies have some cool abilities, but overall definitely a step back from the first two games in the trilogy. Would buy on sale again.