There’s a new video out today showcasing some of the weapons you’ll have on offer in upcoming FPS game Shadow Warrior 3. While it doesn’t show off any of the biggest, strangest stuff, we do get a sense of how even the most basic armaments in Lo Wang’s kit have upgrade options that change the way they work and the kinds of damage they dish out. And gosh this looks a hell of a lot like Doom Eternal.
The trailer shows off three firearms: there’s the Crimson Bull grenade launcher, the Outlaw revolver, and the Sidekicks – a pair of SMGs that each take two magazines that are joined with a chain like nunchaku. For good measure, the video wraps up with some swipes from the Dragon Tail katana, and as we’ve heard before, Shadow Warrior 3 features a “dedicated katana button.”
This is all well and good, but each weapon (save for the sword) also gets a range of upgrades, some of which are shown in the video below. For the Crimson Bull, there’s the Sucker Punch upgrade, which adds a late-arming tracker to the grenade projectiles, letting you arc them around to hit enemies in the back or from below. The Outlaw has an Igniter upgrade that adds incendiary damage, as well as a ‘Poppin’ Heads’ upgrade that does exactly what it says on the tin.
Here’s the video:
Shadow Warrior 2 introduced elemental damage modifiers to weapons, and that can be seen in the Paralyzer upgrade for the Sidekicks, but what really stands out in this (and the rest of the recent videos of Shadow Warrior 3 gameplay) is how much this action feels like an homage to Doom Eternal.
This is in no way a bad thing, at least as far as we’re concerned – Doom Eternal was our game of the year in 2020, thanks in no small part to its constant push to use its arsenal of destruction in creative ways while on the move. Doom Eternal is about managing threats and improvising with the environment on the fly, and Shadow Warrior 3 – at least in the promotional gameplay footage – looks to be aiming for precisely that kind of action.
The Shadow Warrior 3 release date will be sometime this year.