From the very start, the Shadow Warrior FPS franchise has been a tongue-in-cheek parody of ninja stories and martial arts sagas, but Shadow Warrior 3 is shaping up to be most comedic and gory installment yet, featuring a modern world transformed by the arrival of demons and a ninja protagonist with wise-cracking quips, eccentricities, and an increasing willingness to break the fourth wall.
The very first iteration of Shadow Warrior came out in 1997, a 2.5D action shooter built off the same game engine as the original Duke Nukem, with gameplay that homaged the over-the-top excess of 1980s action movies. Rather than pastiching the action movies stars like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Duke Nukem did, Shadow Warrior parodied the martial arts revenge stories so frequently featured in Grindhouse cinema.
The main character of Shadow Warrior (1997), Lo Wang, was a shinobi mercenary protagonist who cut down demons with swords, shurikens, and guns (or odder weapons like the severed head of a fire-breathing demon). The gameplay and visuals were interesting (if juvenile and racy at times), but the aging graphics and the insensitive use of broad Asian stereotypes kept it from being a viable franchise. Then Flying Wild Hog Studios and Devolver Digital acquired the Shadow Warrior license, and set out to make a new video game series that melded modern sensibilities with old-school gameplay philosophy.
How Shadow Warrior (2013) And Shadow Warrior 2 (2016) Rebooted The Franchise
In the 2013 reboot of Shadow Warrior, Lo Wang’s characterization was revamped, shedding the offensive stereotypes from the previous game and becoming a hip, trendy, and cheerfully amoral ninja mercenary with a penchant for pop-culture references. He gets hired by a crime syndicate to steal a piece of an ancient sword called the Nobitsura Kage. This sword turns out to be an ancient magical artifact capable of slaying a select group of ancient demons… and right on cue, an army of demons invade earth from the Shadow Realm. As Lo Wang seeks out the pieces of the Nobitsura Kage, and rips apart demons Mortal Kombat-style, he discovers the motivations behind the architects of the demonic invasion, one involving a tragic story of long-lost love, betrayal, and heartbreak.
That being said, most players of Shadow Warrior 1 and 2 will be paying attention to the games’ fast pace, big guns, and spectacular sword-fighting gameplay. In true 1990s FPS fashion, players can speed through maps like a one-man army, blowing hordes of demonic enemies into tiny chunks with machine pistols and shotguns, roasting them with flamethrowers, or carving them to bits with a magic sword and special Ki attacks. The character of Lo Wang, quick to utter one-liners and quick to resort to ultra-violence, has strong Deadpool vibes, particularly in the trailers for the upcoming Shadow Warrior 3.
How Shadow Warrior 3 Embraces the Crazy (And DOOM-style Gameplay)
The trailer footage for Shadow Warrior 3 introduces several new gameplay features to the gory gun-and-sword template of the last two Shadow Warrior titles: the wall-running, grappling hooks, swift evasion, and brutal executions take many cues from Doom and Doom: Hell On Earth, as Eurogamer relates. The game enemies, ominous-looking in previous games, have taken on more comedic, bizarre, and surreal qualities, such as a demon who looks like a giant accordion and spirits fireworks, or monsters with drills for heads that can burrow underground.
In the premier cinematic trailer for Shadow Warrior 3, the protagonist Lo Wang’s snark ascends from the genre-savviness to full-on medium awareness, with antics such as making fun of Devolver Digital, marveling at the new graphics, and promising to show off the grappling hook before the trailer’s end. The serious melodrama seen in the plot of the prequels is nowhere to be seen so far… and that may be exactly what developers at Flying Wild Hog intended. Games like Shadow Warrior 3 are at their best when they don’t take themselves too seriously and embrace the cheesy, over-the-top absurdity lurking within every FPS about a one-man-army.
