Shadwen Reviews

I mainly used the grapple hook as I never felt the urge or need to use my secondary weapons. Even with my reliance on the grapple hook, I found myself grappling with how to control it throughout my playthrough. As I swung from ledge to ledge, the hook regularly failed to connect with its target and sent me plummeting to my death.

Shadwen has a novel idea behind it, but doesn't quite live up to its promise. Dodgy AI and mechanics make this game a bit of a chore to play, especially once you figure out the optimal path that can be applied to each level.

Shadwen makes no bones about copying from other games. However, with the lack of compelling story-telling and gameplay, it fails to even accommodate interesting mechanics that other games handle better.

Shadwen begins with promise, but has neither the depth nor the variety needed to fulfill it.

Despite its problematic narrative, Shadwen is a very unique game that breathes new life into a genre that hasn’t seen much development in a while. The last time I had such a fun and interesting time with a stealth game was Dishonored. Shadwen carefully designs and organises at every turn; every piece of the environment is deliberate, purposeful, and interesting. The graphics hold up nicely, with a sort of clay/smudged look that works well with the Medieval theme, and reminds me very much of Dishonored/Thief in visual style. If you can ignore the brief moments where the A.I. hiccups, and slightly messy controls/movement (which can be forgiven since you can rewind any mistakes!), then I can highly recommend Shadwen to anyone who considers themselves a lover of the stealth genre – especially for its low price.

Coming from the developers of Trine I expected a little more quality from Shadwen, the uninteresting environments echo the bland characters and gameplay that evolves too slowly. A level editor and mod support will give it some longevity and you might find some enjoyment from making a purely non-violent run through the game. But even the extra items couldn’t spice it up enough for me to find Shadwen anything other than a passing curio.

It takes a lot to make a stealth game worthwhile with many AAA titles like Metal Gear Solid, Hitman, and Splinter Cell on the market. Unfortunately, indie developers have very large shoes to fill, so let's see how Shadwen stacks up.

Honestly, Shadwen feels like it needed more time in development, both to work on its core ideas and bring them to fruition. The bland environments, the lack of an interesting plot, the technical issues, and the various gimmicks makes Shadwen a poor stealth and assassination game. At the very least, it tries to do something a little bit different, but simply doesn’t pull it off.

The few times the game opens up to let the player make use of their high level of mobility are incredibly memorable, and the world building makes it feel like we’re only scratching the surface of this world. That’s not enough to make me recommend it, of course, but they do make Shadwen’s shortcomings all the more painful.

Shadwen is a decent game at best and mediocre at worst. While not bad, it fails to build upon the mechanics it presents. What you do in the third chapter is largely the same as the final chapter: grappling to higher platforms, killing guards, and moving crates to help Lily move forward. Nothing new is presented, and what is already there is never combined in clever ways. About midway through a new enemy type is introduced, one that can only be killed by falling crates or air kills, but even that fails to introduce a significant change to the pace of gameplay. I really like its solution to failing midway through a level, but even that mechanic can't save an otherwise okay game.

PS4 version tested. Review code provided by the publisher.