Review: Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition
It’s hard to believe Flying Wild Hog’s Shadow Warrior games started off as a retro revival of the 3D Realms’ 1997 Build Engine title. While the 2013 game made references to the original, it was very much its own thing. Then I skipped the second title because it would make me feel lonely to play it by myself, and now we’re at Shadow Warrior 3, and it’s unrecognizable.
That’s where we were last year, I guess. This is Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition.
The Definitive Edition comes with survival mode and a new game plus, but otherwise, it’s the same Wang. I haven’t gotten intimate with this Wang yet, so thankfully, my experience will never not be definitive.
Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition (PS4, Xbox Series X|S, (PC [reviewed]) Developer: Flying Wild Hog Publisher: Devolver Digital Released: February 16, 2023 MSRP: $39.99
Sometime after whatever happened in Shadow Warrior 2, the world is in ruins because a dragon has been running amok. It’s kind of hard to believe that there ever was a world since all the wreckage you see seems to have existed in a weird mash-up of ancient China and feudal Japan. It’s colorful, at least.
Series protagonist, Lo Wang, has tried and failed to take the dragon down and, as a result, has lost his significant self-confidence. Orochi Zilla shows up one day with a plan to take the dragon down. It relies on the mask of Wang’s dead spirit friend, Hoji. And then we just kind of stagger down that train of thought, trying to take down the dragon and hoping that something eventually works.
Shadow Warrior 3 is obviously not too committed to the whole story thing. At least, I hope that’s not what it had in mind. Otherwise, I just tried to soften the blow and punched through the back of its head.
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