Shadow Warrior 2 is a first-person shooter game developed by Flying Wild Hog and published by Devolver Digital. It is the sequel to the 2013 Shadow Warrior, the reboot of the 1997 original. The game was released for Microsoft Windows in October 2016, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in May 2017, and Xbox Game Pass in December 2018. A sequel, Shadow Warrior 3, was released on March 1, 2022.
The level environments are more open and nonlinear than in the previous title. New traversal mechanics have been added, such as climbing walls and double jumping to allow for more exploration.[2][4] The mission structure in Shadow Warrior 2 is less restricted than its predecessor, and players can now revisit earlier missions to re-engage past enemies in order to upgrade Wang's skills. The game features a hub area where the player can acquire quests and upgrade their abilities before beginning a mission. Every mission, except for story-specific events, features a randomly generated level design and content that includes randomized map layouts, enemy positions, terrain, buildings, and weather conditions.[2][5] The game utilizes a procedural damage system that allows players to cut and blow off enemy limbs and body parts.[3]
Shadow Warrior 2 Game
The game features over 70 different weapons, varying between firearms and blades.[3] Killing enemies will level up weapons and reward the player with gems to augment their equipment with elemental properties and buffs.[2]
Shadow Warrior 2 was developed by Flying Wild Hog, the studio that previously developed the 2013 reboot of the 1997 original, using their in-house Road Hog Engine.[3] On 11 June 2015, publisher Devolver Digital officially announced the title.[6] The game was released for Microsoft Windows on 13 October 2016, and for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in May 2017.[7]
Jonathan Leack of Game Revolution awarded it 4 out of 5 stars saying that "Shadow Warrior 2 is in position to become Fall 2016's premier sleeper hit as not many gamers are talking about it, and there certainly isn't much in the way of a marketing campaign. Even then, its gameplay dynamics are so well executed that it could walk among this year's biggest games. If you're looking for a fun online co-op game to play with friends, this might just be the game for you. Just don't go in expecting a satisfying story."[13]
IGN's Leif Johnson gave the game a score of 8.6/10 with the consensus "Wang's stupid wisecracks kept me smiling from start to finish, and the variety of melee and ranged combat and the loot that dropped from it was satisfying enough that I came back with friends for more. It's great fun in solo or in co-op, and its small degree of randomization is enough to keep the action fresh for at least a few runs."[15]
Shadow Warrior 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Poland-based indie development studio Flying Wild Hog and published by Devolver Digital. It is the sequel to the 2013 reboot of Shadow Warrior. Shadow Warrior 2 was released on October 13, 2016 for Microsoft Windows and on May 19 the following year for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
The level environments are more open and non-linear than in the previous title. New traversal mechanics have been added such as climbing walls and double jumping to allow for more exploration. Mission structure in Shadow Warrior 2 is less restricted than its predecessor, players can now revisit earlier missions to re-engage past enemies in order to upgrade Wang's skills. The game features a hub area where the player can acquire quests and upgrade their abilities before beginning a mission. Every mission, except for story-specific events, will feature procedurally generated level design and content, including randomized enemy positions, terrain, buildings, and weather conditions. The game utilizes a procedural damage system that allows players to cut and blow off enemy limbs and body parts.
The game features over 70 different weapons, varying between firearms and blades. Killing enemies will level up weapons and reward the player with gems to augment their equipment with element properties and buffs.
Shadow Warrior 2 received "generally favorable" reviews, and gained a Metacritic score of 78/100, based on 61 critic reviews, for PC, 74/100, based on 8 critic reviews, for PS4, 79/100, based on 9 critic reviews, for Xbox One. Leif Johnson for IGN gave the game a score of 8.6 out of 10, summarizing his review with: "Wang's stupid wisecracks kept me smiling from start to finish, and the variety of melee and ranged combat and the loot that dropped from it was satisfying enough that I came back with friends for more. It's great fun in solo or in co-op, and its small degree of randomization is enough to keep the action fresh for at least a few runs."
I grew up on 90s FPS games. Duke Nukem, Blood, Rise of the Triad, and of course Doom. There was always Shadow Warrior though, a game built off the Build Engine, that carried more than a few offensive tropes with it. When Flying Wild Hog rebooted the franchise a couple years back I was excited. It had been a while since I had some Wang in my life (yes those puns will be plentiful), and seeing the series return filled me with glee. While the first game was an homage to classic FPS games, the sequel takes a new turn, and I have mixed feelings about it.
The visuals in the game are outstanding. Even with the randomization, the assets are gorgeous. Enemies are taken apart by a new system that gibs them procedurally, and it really is a sight to see. The core story levels are large and highly detailed, and boy those explosions look real nice. The game also runs super fast, and combat feels superb at 60 fps.
The music and sound though are on another level. Lo Wang and his co-stars are voiced spectacularly. His one-liners had me giggling more often than not. The music though is where it lives and dies. Stan Bush returns, and with original music for this game. It is stellar, and I found myself watching the credits just to hear the track. This game knows what strings to pull, and it pulls them extremely well.
For their sequel, Flying Wild Hog have kept the fundamentals but built an entirely different game atop them. Part Borderlands, part interactive chainsaw massacre, it throws everything at the wall and hopes there's enough blood to make most of it stick.
That gamble is to trust that the movement and combat of the first game were strong enough to support a loot-laden first-person ARPG setup. The structure creaks occasionally, particularly when there's so much loot in your trousers that it all becomes a little meaningless, but it's such an impressively strange thing to have built that I half-expected the whole thing to topple over and smash to bits.
As soon as you start slicing and shooting, you'll see the other big change from the previous game. Loot. Almost every chest you open and enemy that you kill drops loads of the stuff, from medikits to cash and bullets. Most importantly, they drop upgrades in various forms. Some are attached to weapons to change their statistics and others buff your armour or abilities. They're like Diablo's gems, plugging into items to change or improve their qualities. You can fit three to a weapon and they're recyclable so you can experiment with them without being punished.
Customisable weapons then. I thought they might make the game too busy, introducing a preparation phase before the slaughter can begin. There's an element of that, given that bosses and minibosses alike have specific immunities, resistances and vulnerabilities. I've been forced to retreat in order to reshuffle my upgrade combinations and make a truly killer weapon, and other times I've died and respawned multiple times (there's a punishment for doing so, but it's not particularly harsh) before throwing my hands in the air and admitting I'm going to have to retool my favourite chainsaw.
Picking a favourite weapon is almost impossible. I mean, it should be the chainsaw, right? That thing has the most hideously, brutally, brilliant control scheme I've ever seen on a bladed weapon in a game. You can wave it around vaguely using the left mouse button but hold down the right button and you get fine control so you can cut enemies every which way. They slide apart exactly where a blade or bullets hits them, and carry on fighting with all kinds of holes in them and pieces missing. If you like gore, Shadow Warrior 2 delivers in spades. And buckets.
The humour doesn't always land for me but I like that Lo Wang's jokes fall flat in the game as much as they do in my living room. It's a good setup, surrounding him with straight men and women, and dropping the most serious and stuck-up of the lot in his head is a better play than pairing him up with a trickster demon as in the previous game. It allows Wang to be an obnoxious little shit with a sweet protective side that occasionally comes out, and gives his companion space to groan at his bad jokes, slap down his worst tendencies, and put him in his place from time to time. She's not held up as the bright side of the twosome though, coming across as arrogant and a little too in love with the power trips of the villainous corporation at the heart of the whole mess.
Even after playing at E3, and enjoying what I'd played, I wasn't convinced the looting and weapon-crafting and -switching would hold up over five, ten, fifteen or twenty hours. I do think it all becomes a little too noisy at times and when there's so much stuff happening in my inventory and on the battlefield, I have a tendency to stop caring about any of it. This is a full frontal assault on the senses and sometimes I wished it would slow down or take a break from the constant loot drops. That feeling never lasted more than the span between one mob of enemies and the next though. Flying Wild Hog have made an exceptional game and all of quibbles fade away when I'm in the thick of the action, slicing and dicing. 2ff7e9595c
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