Shadow Warrior 3 Tips: 8 Ways To Handle The Hordes Of Yokai

As a game that takes heavy inspiration from retro shooters, Shadow Warrior 3 tips are essential to those who aren't familiar with the conventions of the genre. Shadow Warrior 3 is a fast-paced, chaotic experience that will see you murder hordes of Japanese-inspired demons on an adventure to fell a giant dragon. It can be challenging in its most frantic moments, meaning you'll want to make use of every tool at your disposal. So, here's eight Shadow Warrior 3 tips that will make you the best ninja you can be.

Shadow Warrior 3 Tips: Don't Stop Moving

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Being idle is certain death in a retro shooter, so you want to be moving constantly. Horizontally, vertically, diagonally - it doesn't matter, just move. The enemies are quick and with the amount that get thrown at you later in the game, you can easily get swarmed from all angles.

Remember that you move at the same speed in every direction, and with your double jumps, dashes, and grapple hook, you have more than enough tools to navigate the combat arenas rapidly. 

Shadow Warrior 3 Tips: Make Use Of Your Katana

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One of Lo Wang's key offensive weapons, is his trusty katana. It's been with him in all his adventures, and it still remains just as useful in this entry. The most basic enemies in the game - like the Shogai and Kugutsu - can often be taken down in one slice, and an earlier character upgrades lets you gain ammo from striking Yokai with the sword, making it even more useful. Its damage is surprisingly high too, and it's especially effective at slicing apart frozen enemies. 

Shadow Warrior 3 Tips: Look Out For Environmental Hazards

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Many of the game's combat arenas feature interactive traps and hazards that you can take advantage of to easily kill lots of enemies. Of course, they can just as easily kill you too. Look out for buttons that are highlighted when you move your crosshair near them to activate these traps. They can range from huge saws that dash across the arena, to floors that drop enemies into spike pits, and much more.

Shadow Warrior 3 Tips: Complete Challenges

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One of the main tabs in your menu reveals a challenge screen that allows you to earn orbs. These orbs are used for upgrading character abilities and weapons, and some of them can be earned from completing challenges.

Some are easier than others, and the likelihood of finishing them all in one playthrough is low, but there are a few simple ones that are well worth chasing for the reward. Getting katana kills, multi-kills with rockets, and Chi-blasting enemies into spikes are just some of the easier ones.

Shadow Warrior 3 Tips: Seek Out Extra Orbs

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Following on from the last tip, is another way of earning yourself some upgrades. Aside from gaining orbs from challenges, you can also find them by exploring the levels a bit. They're often found off the beaten path, usually requiring you to do a little jump puzzle, or crouch through a hole. Additionally, when you are near one, they emit a harmonic noise, so even when you can't see any, listen out for that distinct sound. 

• If you want to know where all of the Shadow Warrior 3 Upgrade Points are, then we've got you covered, so you can become an all-powerful Yokai killer.

Shadow Warrior 3 Tips: Utilise The Gore Weapon Mechanic Often

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One of the key features of combat in Shadow Warrior 3, is the gore weapons. These are weapons that you can appropriate from your enemies' corpses, ranging from laser grenades, floating eyes that follow your crosshair, and firework miniguns.

It costs one to three bars of your finisher metre to use this mechanic, but it recovers as you get kills and earn yellow picks ups. This can really turn the tide in battle, and allows you to kill the tougher enemies instantly, while also giving you a way of dealing with the rest. Every encounter without a gore weapon, is an encounter wasted. 

• Wondering what each of the Shadow Warrior 3 Gore Weapons does? Make sure to know which ones are the most powerful with our guide.

Shadow Warrior 3 Tips: Pickups Respawn

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In many of the paths between sections, and in the combat arenas themselves, there are set areas where health, ammo, and finisher charges spawn. An interesting feature of Shadow Warrior is that these actually respawn after being picked up, unlike many similar games in which these are a one-time deal.

This means that if a battle is taking you a while, you can still keep your ammo reserves high, and if you want full health before leaving an area, you can wait around.

Shadow Warrior 3 Tips: Learn Your Elements

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There are three main elements in Shadow Warrior 3 - fire, ice, and electric. You'll mostly encounter these in their exploding barrels which are littered around the combat arenas, but they have specific uses that make combat easier. Fire barrels obviously just explode into flames and deal massive burst damage, ice barrels freeze all enemies caught in the blast, and electric barrels stun enemies while dealing damage over time.

These elements are more useful on certain enemies, for example, using the ice barrels to freeze the hard-hitting demons will allow you some breathing room to thin out the horde, while electricity can immobilise and kill the weaker enemies while you focus elsewhere. 

That's all for our Shadow Warrior 3 tips, meaning you have all the tools you'll need to jump into Lo Wang's adventure and slay the pesky Yokai's.