With 6 years passing since we last saw an outing with Lo Wang, there will be many glad to hear that more of his sassy wit and comical humour has now made its way back to our consoles once more as developer Flying Wild Hog’s latest adventure sees the continuation of the cult favourite series with the arrival Shadow Warrior 3.
For anyone who has already experienced the delights of Shadow Warrior 2, this sequel will be just what you’d expect. It brings more of the well-known fast-paced action, razor-sharp melee combat and a pretty impressive blend of horrific yet beautifully destructive enemies to contend with. For those who’ve yet to jump into either of the previous titles, Shadow Warrior 3 is quite simply best described as a slightly less impressive version of DOOM (2016), albeit one that continues on from the events of the prequel right from the off.
So the story has players once more take on the iconic role of series protagonist Lo Wang, who after staving off an interdimensional invasion of the demonic variety over the past two games, must once more prepare for an objective of epic proportions. To assist with taking down an entire world eating dragon that has been released by none other than himself, Wang must now strike up a questionable affiliation with his former employer, nemesis and now apparent sidekick Orochi Zilla.
Whilst the story has been a fairly important aspect each time around in these rebooted adventures, Shadow Warrior 3 feels like the series has taken a slight step backwards, with a much heavier focus on action and explosive gunplay, rather than that of quality storytelling. That’s not to say that the story here is a bad one, however the somewhat serious nature of the first reboot appears to have gone completely out the window with this tale proving more towards the wacky side of storytelling and whilst there is plenty of obvious reason given for players to be pushing along with the story, the experience can only really be described as an overly far-fetched and stretched adventure when everything you’ve been fighting for in the past two games has essentially come undone at this point.
That said, the story delivery is spot on with progression told through numerous impressive cut-scene displays that have quite clearly seen care placed into production quality, as well as a much bigger budget if the set pieces are anything to go by (Think any modern-day Michael Bay movie and you’ll know what to expect). The story itself doesn’t exactly fire off that same quality for the whole adventure this time around but for the moments in which the story doesn’t quite reach the unwavering heights this series is now accustomed to, we still have the humorous, and at times, laugh out loud slapstick comedy and character bickering which has been perfected so well in recent entries to keep things from going stale.
As for the gameplay, Shadow Warrior 3 feels a lot like the aforementioned DOOM reboot in many ways with its fast-paced combat, and explosive and messy enemy obliterations and decapitations proving so frequent, only in a purely single-player experience.
The game plays out in a mostly linear fashion with upgrade orbs proving the only real reason to stray from the obvious path to progression as you look to peak into and upgrade an array of various abilities along the way to help take down the hordes of enemies that normally accompany each progressional passage of play in an arena-style battle.
Whilst it often feels over the top and even a little barbaric at times with some of the truly explosive and destructive attacks that can be performed to create some incredibly gratuitous gore, the combat is where the action of Shadow Warrior 3 truly comes alive. With every fight comes the chance to showcase the smooth precision of Lo Wang’s movement, with a grappling hook to help propel you between surfaces and some incredibly satisfying parkour through the use of wall-running, double-jumping through each of the games colourful and stunningly detailed environments.
To help ensure this combat remains varied and exciting, players can and will be required to make the most of an arsenal of weaponry including the likes of a shotgun, a semi-automatic handgun and an untypical crossbow, as well as the likes of a rocket launcher, machine guns, and other deadly weaponry. Of course, it wouldn’t be Lo Wang without a katana to slice and dice your enemies with and that is naturally present here too, and with magical elements of chi also capable of blasting your enemies to pieces, variety is certainly the spice of life within Shadow Warrior 3 – or at least the way to eliminate it any sign of it!
A defining aspect of combat beyond the fast-paced and gore-filled nature is the moment that truly ties in those DOOM comparisons. That feature is of course none other than fight-ending finishers, which come into play, with each one having a unique ability tied to it such as a health increase, an enemy freezing component and more. Using these simply makes Shadow Warrior 3 feel like DOOM in a new skin and it’s impressive, to say the least, not to mention downright fun.
Away from the gameplay and as with its predecessors, Shadow Warrior 3 is a visually pleasing effort with oriental environments looking breath-taking at times with their incredible amount of detail really helping you feel like you’ve traversed somewhere unique and magical, whilst even the mutilations of enemies comes with impressive visuals that have you keen to see just what damage your weapons have caused.
Should you be content with listening to a barrage of swearing from our foul-mouthed yet equally comical protagonist then you’ll find an equally impressive effort put into the audio with gunplay delivering the perfect thud as each bullet is fired and a real sense of legitimacy as you swing, run, jump and gun your way through each of the game’s areas.
Conclusion
Overall, if you are a fan of the previous adventures in the Shadow Warrior rebooted series then you’re going to be a fan of this one too. As I said before the story doesn’t feel quite as impressive this time around but with some incredible action, some over-the-top yet satisfying set pieces and even more of the dirty humour to pull us through once more, this adventure with Lo Wang is certainly another we should be happy with, even if it is a little wackier than normal.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
