The Shadow Warrior reboot series, developed by the Polish team at Flying Hog, is a strange one. From what I remember of the 2013 reboot, it was a good time, with some aimless level design. 2016's Shadow Warrior 2 was something of a let-down, with its procedurally-generated maps and Borderlands inspired lootfest. Shadow Warrior 3 is a straight up Doom Eternal clone, which makes me wonder if Flying Hog is pulling a meta-joke on us with the series. Is every sequel going to be a copy of another hit shooter? That being said, Shadow Warrior 3 is a really good Eternal clone. Just like Eternal, its enemies have weakspots, and there are climbable surfaces and grapple points to aid your movement as you run from its demonic hordes. The enemy designs are pretty cool. There's a zombie in a wheel chair that lays explosive eggs, multiple-armed samurai, and a giant ogre with a hammer for a left arm, a la Hellboy. There's even some suicide bomber demons that run at you while screaming, which is a nice reference to Series Sam. The early levels are beautiful, featuring a feudal Japan art style that really pops. Shadow Warrior 3 is an Unreal Engine 4 title, and it's pretty much on par with Doom Eternal in the looks department, although the later levels aren't as pretty as the opening ones. Unfortunately, there's a bit of a shader cache stutter, although it's really only bad the first ten minutes or so. Otherwise, it runs at a steady 144 frames per second at 1440p maxed on my RTX 3080 powered rig. In the humor department, Lo Wang is about as mature as ever. Most of his jokes suck, although I might have uttered a chuckle or two. His former god sidekick Hoji, however, is really annoying. His voice actor sounds like he's trying to pull off an impression of Heath Ledger's Joker, but the delivery is all wrong and too nasal. The story involves Lo Wang and former villain Zilla trying to save the world from a gigantic dragon, and while it's not compelling, I did watch the cutscenes with more interest than I did those in Doom Eternal. Shadow Warrior 3 knows that it's a derivative shooter, and the fact that it breezes by in just under six hours makes sure that it doesn't overstay its welcome. Its worth a solid twenty or so bucks, but you can play it on Game Pass right now. I had a good time with it.
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