Sequel to the off-beat Shadow Warrior game

Shadow Warrior 2 is a premium action game for PC coming from developer Flying Wild Hog. It is the sequel to the popular first person looter shooter, Shadow Warrior. In it, players will once again be facing a legion of demons to defend and save the world from total annihilation.

Drawing comparisons to the first Shadow Warrior game, Shadow Warrior 2 brings even more guns, swords, and chainsaws to add to the already absurd arsenal of weapons available in the original. Players can go at it solo or share the mayhem with friends via four-player online co-op.

Guns blazing and swords swinging

Shadow Warrior 2 follows the adventures of the original game’s protagonist, Lo Wang, on a quest to restore the life of a young woman whose soul is trapped in his body. The bickering dual personalities allow plenty of scope for the series’ trademark off-color humor, while Lo’s mission pits him against demons, robots, and other nasties in a spectacle of bullets and gore in open area battles.

Customize Lo with dozens of different weapons and a range of different skills. Shadow Warrior 2 is on the fast-paced and frenetic end of the FPS spectrum complemented by a suite of abilities that let him leap around buildings and cut foes to pieces with a surprisingly rich melee system. Your guns and hacking tools can be upgraded and augmented with up to three weapons stones.

Another notable improvement is the main campaign which now features procedurally generated levels that are more open and have you jumping through interdimensional worlds and landscapes. That being said, there are plenty of side quests to take on in the game and they can feel rather repetitive and too familiar, both in gameplay and level design. This is one aspect where this sequel falls short of the original.

More of everything

If you love fast-paced shooter (and melee) action and don’t mind the constant stream of puerile off-color humor, Shadow Warrior 2 offers an exciting action experience that’s equally fun in single-player or co-op mode. It plays like the first game, only with more weapons and mayhem to be had. It could use more variety, but it’s a great game to play for some mindless enjoyment.