Shadow Warrior 3

Shadow Warrior 3 feels more linear than the previous game, but is indeed fun and over-the-top. Unfortunately, it's way shorter than it should and you are left with the feeling that it ends when the fun was just starting to unfold.

Shadow Warrior 3 is a decent entry to the series. It’s the shortest one to date, has the weakest story thus far, and the least content. Despite this, the third chapter is the most fun and visually impressive yet. Your time with the game may be short-lived, but it will still be time well spent.

Shadow Warrior 3 is a fast, spectacular and over-the-top arena shooter (with bland platforming sections) and, on this front, it works very well. Don't ask for anything more, though.

Shadow warrior 3 is an excellent first person shooter with an awesome combat system full of possibilities and cool mechanics, with gorgeous and colorful graphics that looks outstanding. The poor and simple level design, short length and lack of content avoid it from reaching the top tiers of the genre.

The game lacks a bit of depth in almost everything it tries to do, but it's still a ton of fun and a good game to try if you fancy the "Boomer Shooter" games genre. Lo Wang and Shadow Warrior's third installment could've been a bit more polished, but it's still a fun experience.

Shadow Warrior 3 makes use of many good ideas, but the application is mediocre, and the content is limited. The game fails to leave a lasting impression at the end.

Shadow Warrior 3 in a very nice fast FPS game that offers loads of entertainment and fun thanks to Lo Wang's sense of humor. But it's also sold at quite a steep price for what is essentially a 6 hours linear experience with no replay value.

Shadow Warrior 3 is an interesting title and a fun playthrough. But I can’t say it’s one to go out of your way to get your hands on. However, if you have the opportunity to play it, it’s a worthwhile ride.

Shadow Warrior 3 provides some good old-fashioned FPS action, even if it isn’t doing anything particularly special within the genre. Its forgettable story gets almost entirely out of the way of its blisteringly fast combat, chock full of enemies that are fun to shoot up through largely familiar methods. It doesn’t take many risks to help it stand out, but Shadow Warrior 3's quick campaign is still a gory and enjoyable gauntlet while it lasts.

Shadow Warrior 3 polishes its gameplay to deliver a fun game full of gore, but its lack of depth might make it a bit repetitive for some players.

Shadow Warrior 3 is a game that knows exactly what it’s doing. It’s not the best-looking game, nor the most polished. The ambitions are limited, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This is the action movie you watch on a weekend afternoon, not Citizen Kane. That confidence results in a game that is extremely enjoyable with a great mix of action and absurdism, but also something that will be easy to forget. The linear design works for a single playthrough, which is more than enough to get what Shadow Warrior 3 has to offer.

Shadow Warrior 3 strips away much of the extra fluff from its predecessor for a short, straightforward thrill ride packed with violence. Its humor doesn't always land and the narrative can be slipshod but the gameplay is very fun and backed by solid level design. Just don't be too surprised at the overall campaign length.

Shadow Warrior 3 has some genuinely great ideas, but it is hampered by a handful of pronounced technical issues and a general lack of replayability.

Pretty, action-packed, and fun while it lasts, Shadow Warrior 3 is well made as long as there isn't any dialogue, but there's so little content that the price tag makes it truly hard to recommend.

Shadow Warrior 3 delivers a frantic and spectacular but rather linear experience, which can be beaten quite quickly and doesn't feel special. Those who hoped for an evolution of the mechanics seen in Shadow Warrior 2 will be disappointed, while fans of traditional shooters could appreciate the new adventure of Lo Wang even in its absolute harmlessness.

By the time the credits had rolled I didn’t feel much beyond “that was a video game”. Which is fine, SW3’s combat has been finely tuned, but it takes so many pages from Doom Eternal’s playbook it begs the question of why people shouldn’t just go play that game instead. SW3 doesn’t offer a riveting story, it plods forward without any surprises or a real hook, and ends as generically as it begins.

Shadow Warrior 3 is mostly worth playing for its humoristic universe and its inspiration from Doom. Despite a limited content and an almost non-existent scenario, it offers a good moment of relaxation based on energetic confrontations requiring a little concentration. This is sometimes spoiled by a complicated readability of the fights due to a not very well placed camera. Nevertheless, if you're looking for a good fast-paced romp where you don't have to take yourself too seriously, it should be able to satisfy your needs.

Shadow Warrior 3 lives and dies on how much fun it is to play. Thankfully, the minute-to-minute action is downright delightful, even if the boss encounters maintain the series’ streak of being underwhelming. The shooting, movement, and killing are every bit as good as recent Doom games, even if the whole thing feels derivative. The guns and enemies are wildly inventive and engaging. It is a shame the rest of the experience fails to meet the same standard. I was disappointed at many of the design choices here, particularly the loss of cooperative play and randomized encounters. Die-hard fans and shooter aficionados should pick this up, but most folks would probably find more fun with some different wang online.

Additionally, while I really did enjoy the game, and had a ton of fun learning the combat rhythm and mechanics, I will probably never go back for a second playthrough. As I mentioned earlier, the game is full of the lowest type of humor imaginable, and by the end of the game, the same batch of one-liners that had me chuckling during the opening hours was starting to grate. That, coupled with the singular playstyle and set of upgrades, make for a poor reason to start a second playthrough. While launching at only $50, coming in competing with some of the finest video games of this (or any generation), make it hard to justify an early purchase.

Shadow Warrior 3 is fun at first, but combat situations quickly become repetitive, and there’s little variety in the gameplay itself.

The last Shadow Warrior attempted to return to the simpler gameplay and roots of the series, but the changes towards simplicity were too great.

While the shooting and free-running gameplay are enjoyable when everything works, Shadow Warrior 3 remains both fun and frustrating in equal measure — while it lasts.

Shadow Warrior 3 feels like a teenager that still has a bit of maturing to do. Humor that tries to be edgy overshadows the fun gameplay, and the lack of an intriguing story does not help either. I would not necessarily say Shadow Warrior 3 is a bad game, but it was disappointing that I often felt like I was playing through a 15-year-old’s video game fantasy. Still, there are moments of fun to be had, and I hope Shadow Warriors 4, if it happens, can fix some of the writing mistakes to make the enjoyable experience of actually playing the game worth the time.

Shadow Warrior 3 isn't quite the game we expected, and on balance, we feel it's a big step back from its two predecessors. Lo Wang's latest adventure is plagued by unparalleled linearity, a cumbersome presence of identical platform stages and a fair amount of technical problems that inevitably affect the gaming experience. To support Shadow Warrior 3 are exclusively the charisma of the protagonist and the frenetic and fun fighting system, although its use is limited by a poor longevity and the total absence of extras that encourage users to return to the game (such as the New Game Plus or a trivial horde mode).

Shadow Warrior 3 is not ashamed to admit that it is borrowing everything from other fast-paced FPS games like Doom Eternal, Serious Sam and even Bulletstorm. But with all those references, Shadow Warrior 3 fails to provide any originality and loses its charm from the previous games. The humour is still there, but this time it feels much more forced than usual. With a game-time of 5 to 6 hours, you will have some short burst fun, but it still doesn’t justify the asking price.

Shadow Warrior 3 is a competent – and often very satisfying – shooter with enough action and guns to stay reasonably interesting throughout. This being said, a mostly unforgettable story, dragging last section and cheesy writing leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It’s fun to put on in the background but doesn’t offer much that isn’t better elsewhere within the genre.

While not as punchy as Doom Eternal, the energetic, over-the-top combat is fluid, satisfying and by far the best aspect of Shadow Warrior 3. Everything else, however, seems like a big step back from its predecessor: Repetitive parkour segments, terrible writing, bland level design and a limited supply of weapons are not quite enough to carry the game through its playtime, which clocks around six hours or so. With no coop and very little reason to give it another go, the asking price seems a bit steep as well.

Shadow Warrior 3 invokes gaming's simpler past while lampshading the fact that it borrows so much from more modern games. It sits in a no-man's-land of middling design decisions and absolutely terrible writing, even though its action and presentation sometimes shine through.

Shadow Warrior 3 buries a fun shooter so deep in muck that it’s not worth dirtying your hands.

Shadow Warrior 3 is a huge disappointment and a wasted opportunity to elevate the series and take it out of the niche it's been in for a long time; in fact, it's a considerable step back from Shadow Warrior 2. Lo Wang is constantly irritating and prevents us from enjoying those moderately well-executed moments.