gratuitously overcooked. decision to make it a looter shooter was nuts, particularly when you consider every piece of loot is just another mod that adds elemental percentage. this system is at odds with and constantly sabotages the tempo of a mechanically very good hypersp33d fps that is mired in menu management, minus the aggravating forced animation when falling more than 3 ft. as opposed to something like nuevo doom there appears to be no encounter design which is a decision a game should make only if raw unfiltered slaughter map fragging is fundamentally enough, but every mob in a sw2 pack will have its own weapon type immunities and resistances independent from the others (why) which on higher difficulties means engaging with bozo-brained systems counter-intuitive to the greater fragging initiative.

Played through Xbox Game Pass. I downloaded this expecting it to be pretty classic "run and shoot people". I wasn't expecting a sort of... Borderlands-light style gameplay. I ended up going mostly melee because it's fun to blast thing to little bits.

Dialogue is obnoxious, but I'll give them credit for "I just wanted to pet the bunnies, George" at the end. Also the ending is strangely abrupt? Also had some crashing issues.

Overall enjoyable enough, especially if it's "free" through game pass.

I really liked the 2013 Shadow Warrior reboot, but 2 is just an all around worse game. That’s not to say it’s bad because it really isn’t, it’s just not as good as it should be. The switch to a looter-shooter with only like 5 different levels that every mission in the game takes place in wasn’t entirely welcome but less jarring than I thought it’d be. The guns feel pretty good and you can traverse those levels in some really fun ways once you figure out the trick to breaking this game over your knee. The story was a significant step down from the last game with every character being a downgrade but there’s glimpses of what this could have been had they been able to pull it off. Overall it was a fun time and would definitely be a lot of fun with friends, just not as good as it should have been.

You got the touch
You got the power
After all is said and done
You've never walked, you've never run,
You're a winner
You got the moves, you know the streets
Break the rules, take the heat
You're nobody's fool
You're at your best when when the goin' gets rough
You've been put to the test, but it's never enough
You got the touch
You got the power
When all hell's breakin' loose
You'll be riding the eye of the storm
You got the heart
You got the motion
You know that when things get too tough
You got the touch
You never bend, you never break
You seem to know just what it takes
You're a fighter
It's in the blood, it's in the will
It's in the mighty hands of steel
When you're standin' your ground
And you never get hit when your back's to the wall
Gonna fight to the end and you're takin' it all
You got the touch
You got the power
When all hell's breakin' loose
You'll be riding the eye of the storm
You got the heart
You got the motion
You know that when things get too tough
You got the touch
You're fightin' fire with fire
You know you got the touch
You're at your best when when the road gets rough
You've been put to the test, but it's never enough
You got the touch
You got the power
You got the touch
You got the power

Everything about this game frustrates me. Weapons, wack. Sounds, wack. Firing rate, wack. Looter shooter mechanics, wack. Lo Wang, wack. Instant falling but with a shit ton of end lag, wack. Movement in general, wack. Mission system, wack. Wack Wack Wack Wack Wack. The big sword melee mechanics that they try to use to justify this reboot series' existence... eh, it is what it is, it exists, probably becomes wack later into the game. Literally worst shooter that I touched, no I have not played Duke Nukem.

One of the best first person action games I've ever played. It offers a riveting combat system that fuses classic hack n slash style with bullet hell mechanics seamlessly. A truly addictive combat system that'd depth is furthered by a plethora of weapons to choose from, accompanied by hundreds of unique upgrades that can be applied to them, and of course many physical abilities as well. Shadow Warrior 2 truly allows you to shape the game to your playstyle.

The level design advances that philosophy as well. The open level design in each level provides you with nearly limitless possibilities. Even the side missions are just as fulfilling as the main story. Full of great bosses, plot lines, and tons of unique weapons to gain as rewards.

The weakest part of Shadow Warrior 2 is the writing. It is not the deepest puddle in the parking lot, but it's serviceable, full of twists, and has a great sense of humor to go along with it. Pacing is the primary issue it falls victim of. It jumps back in forth from progressing the plot at the pace of a snail, to the speed of a cheetah.

Ultimately Shadow Warrior 2 is evidence that the indie and small budget game scene is not one to underestimate. I would argue that the combat system utilized is better than the vast majority of modern western AAA gaming.

The gunplay and encounters are still fine, just as in the first game. But then they decided to give it a spin and make all the levels into semi-open areas so that you could explore and find some random stuff around and it didn't work AT ALL. After a few hours you are just running around the same 4 or 5 scenarios even if you come from different sides of the map with different objectives, there are also a fuckton of semibosses thrown around that are just too tanky for their own good.
This game also features a leveling system and diablo/borderlands-like loot system for weapons and parts unlike the previous entry that had a small selection of weapons and that was it. This doesn't fit the game at all and just makes it feel a lot more grindy and repetitive than it should be since once you get one powerful weapon you don't need to use anything else.
The humor is still present and matches the tone of the previous game and the story isn't anything remarkable either.
Even tho I don't regret playing this game, I wouldn't recommend it if you enjoyed the first one.

One of the biggest fucking disappointments I've ever had with video games, AND I MEAN THAT; this thing shows that shoving a lot of trends in a game just to try to make it more popular just doesn work.

The first Shadow Warrior, the 2013 rebooted I mean, was probably one of the first "modern" boomer shooters, launching even before than Wolfenstein: The New Order, that is when the boomer shooters like Doom started coming back and getting more popular.
And then, this shit right here just destroys everything trying to be some kind of looter shooter, fast paced modern boomer shooter with multiplayer I DON'T EVEN KNOW, it just feel like a unfocused frankestein of FPS trends and it doesn't feel right or unique in any way.

Instead of having a set of weapons with different roles and upgrades, like it's antecessor, it has this looter shooter thing of having a ton of weapons that feels mostly the same, which I hate.

don't care about story. terrible dick jokes. the first thing that appears on the first cutscene is... rabbit sex... wtf.
don't care about characters. all annoying.

there is cards... that improve your stats or something. also didn't liked.

The level design and enemies are... weird, not completely bad. Most maps looks different, which is good, but they just feel weird and repetitive in gameplay. Theres still, at least, some diverse enemies, even though I hated that there's harder versions of enemies that are the exact same enemy but bigger, are bullet sponges and has a poison aura, fire aura, etc.

There is a hub world... i didn't liked.

Conclusion: I don't like this game.

I played, thankfully with Xbox Game Pass, expecting a boomer Shooter like Doom 4 or, I don't know, 2013's SHADOW WARRIOR? You know? this game's antecessor? And I got a game that just has too much trends shoved on it, making it totally bland and forgetable.
It's also funny that this game launched the same year that Doom 4 launched, but, unlike Doom 4, this is just a forgetable game that did little to no impact; even though it could be right at Doom's side of games that brought back the Boomer Shooters to modern gaming.

I can imagine people liking this, because is still a looter shooter so it can be addictive, but I don't recommend to anyone.
If you want a boomer shooter, play Doom 4 or 2013's Shadow Warrior, much better than this one; if you want a looter shooter, play, I don't know, Destiny or Boderlands I guess? I'm not a Looter Shooter specialist; There is also Titanfall 2 or even Call of Duty that do what this thing try to do but better (especially Titanfall 2).
This is the main problem games that try to be too many things and follow trends, they end up having nothing special in any way and other games do what they try to be but better; if this game launched nowadays it would probably have a mediocre Battle Royale mode for example, just to shove more trends in it to try to make it more popular.

I don't like this.
Maybe, at some point, I will try to do an actual decent review for this, but this mean that I gonna need to play this again so... probably, never gonna happen.

Shadow Warrior 3 looks 100x better.
Play 2013's Shadow Warrior, it's good.

A decent enough game, though you should lower your expectations. It's an open-world-esque looter-shooter, with all the missions taking place across a few (somewhat) large, open levels. If you're expecting it to be absolutely anything like the original Shadow Warrior, definitely skip it, as this is nothing like a classic shooter.

Once I got past the initial shock, I found a decently fun arena shooter style game, with a cheesy story which I couldn't really understand because I never played the first reboot title, weapons which would provide a good punch had it not been for the bullet sponge-y nature of the enemies, decently large levels with some nice visuals, and an overall solid experience. Generally speaking, this is not my kind of game, but it is hard to fault it, as it seems to have been handled well, within the scope of what the developers seem to have been going for.

(Copied from Steam)

The Shadow Warrior reboot showed a lot of promise and was excessive without being pointlessly edgy. This just feels like a failure alround, trying so hard to be Borderlands by apeing that series's worst aspects.

Environments are dull and you get swarmed by trash mobs with no sense of encounter design. Loot means your inventory quickly gets loaded down with tons of similar weapons and upgrades/enhancements that all amount to "shoot better" or "shoot 5% lightning damage".

Every single conversation is annoying arseholes being shitty to each other, and Lo Wang never stops inserting random dated references that the rest of the cast just ignore. Most quests amount to "go here and kill enough things".

The only thing keeping it at 2 stars was the average gunplay.