The story itself is largely nonsense, and not in a bad way.

Time between action pieces is spent in cutscenes and performing first-person parkour across levels. As you proceed further in your adventure and the challenge ramps up, this freedom to move and still shoot is critical to keeping things enjoyable, rather than becoming a tiring slog. This is important, as the speed of combat, with all the dashing and weapon switching, lets you make sense of the chaotic battlefields, rather than lining up a pixel-perfect reticle. The aiming and shooting is incredibly generous you only need to point roughly at your target for a forgiving auto-aim to home in on your adversaries. For all the bombastic action here, it’s a thinking players game, and the way these intersect is one of Shadow Warrior 3’s greatest strengths. Fighting effectively means mixing your attacks, and making good decisions about what attacks to use on which enemies and when. Ranged attacks, using a mix of pistols, shotguns, grenade launchers, and other arms, refill your health, but ammo is scarce. Your sword hits fast and hard, and it generates ammo for your guns, but you tend to rapidly take damage. There is a natural push-pull between melee and ranged combat. Repeating the Doom-inspired mechanics of the first two Shadow Warriors entries, your health is limited but replenished quickly when you slay enemies. Protagonist Wang fights with reckless abandon against scores of ghosts, demons, and all sorts of bizarre otherworldly adversaries. Shadow Warrior 3 Review: Big Trouble in Demon Infested Japanįast and violent are the best words to describe the combat in Shadow Warrior 3.

There are some rough edges, but there is a fun time to be had here regardless. While the Assassin's Creed's of the world push more and more into the open world, Shadow Warrior 3 eschews that to embrace a memorable, linear experience. It’s a solid action-adventure comedy, the gaming equivalent of a B Movie, and it embraces this to good effect. Shadow Warrior 3, the first-person sword-slashing shooter from Flying Wild Hog and Devolver Digital is a throwback to this era.

Ranks of shadow warrior 3 equipment