Shadow Warrior 3 (PlayStation 4)

If you played a first person shooter in the 90s, chances are you knew Duke and you knew Caleb, let’s not forget the last of the Build Trinity Lo-Wang!. Wang is back and is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Doom Guy and B.J rather than the torrid path Duke has taken. 

Played on PlayStation 5

Shadow Warrior 3 is the third title in the remade Shadow Warrior series, the first being a very rough but fun FPS, the second being a snore fest of a Looter shooter and now we are at 3 which lends ALOT from a certain demonic FPS that took the world by storm in the past few years. 

In the previous game our retired Hitman/Ninja Lo-Wang managed to release a mystical Dragon which has done a really good job of laying waste to the world.

After several failed attempts to stop the Dragon, Lo-Wang has lost his mojo and his mind and is found in the shattered remains of the Wang Cave talking to the mask of his old Demonic friend Hoji.

Lo-Wang’s old nemesis Zilla turns up and convinces the hero to give it one more shot and your assault on the dragon starts again.

The writing ranges from quite funny to cringe at times but never in an offensive or to a point you want to turn the game off. Lo-Wang ends up meeting a few more characters and the banter really helps you stay interested in a story that is mostly just an excuse for things to blow up or bleed. 

Graphically Shadow Warrior 3 is a nice looking game but without a dedicated PlayStation 5 version you’re left with an upscaled PS4 game with iffy textures at points, beautiful set pieces and a weird vaseline effect on cutscenes. 

The stages all ooze colour and it’s certainly a far cry from the days of Brown and Grey shooters, it’s the best looking Shadow Warrior to date and it’s art style while wacky fits the tone and gameplay perfectly.

The enemy designs are wacky in the best way and start from your standard zombie/yokai and get pretty weird with an enemy who looks like an accordion combined with a monster. 

The performance throughout is buttery smooth at a solid 60fps with little to no dips from what I observed, there were a few graphical issues with textures not loading in and the odd glitch where a platforming section wouldn’t work but overall solid performance with no game breaking bugs.

So Shadow Warrior 3 is a “Boomer Shooter” which basically means it is a first person shooter, based on an old property with a strong focus on fast paced combat in arena battles and broken up with plot exposition and platforming sections, much like the title I alluded to earlier a certain Doom Eternal.

While it’s far from the most original card in the deck, heck they have even copied the Glory Kill aspect of being able to spend some meter to instantly kill enemies along with the way you kill foes generates health or ammo, it was a fun gameplay loop in Eternal and it still stands up here. 

When you instant kill certain enemies you’ll get exclusive weapons, they are all fun to use but my personal favourites were the giant sword, the Firework launcher and the Blackhole Generator. These help balance out the small amount of weapons you pick up in Shadow Warrior 3, starting with your sword and revolver and ending with a rail gun and shrunken launcher, 6 or 7 weapons in total. 

There is an upgrade system where you find Orbs that either upgrade your character or your weapons, you can also gather them through in-game achievements and may I suggest putting everything into the automatic Riot Gun, which makes stuff die so quickly.

The platforming sections are quite easy and often where the story gets revealed. You’ll run and jump between green paths, wall running and swinging using your newly acquired grappling hook, because it’s mandatory for everyone to have them now the game cheekily jokes.

The shooting and movement feel fantastic and is one of the most kinetic and smoothest shooters around, some arenas also have stage hazards which make for an even more chaotic time with you activating them, dodging attacks and playing the priority game. 

Clocking in at around 6 hours, Shadow Warrior 3 isn’t here for a long time but it is a well paced, white knuckle ride which doesn’t really have a dull moment.

It doesn’t have a New Game + and the short run time may put some off, it’s not a full priced title but certainly has the heart of one and is alot more fun than some AAA titles on the market. If this is the future of Shadow Warrior 3 then please sign me up for a truck load of Wang.