Shadow Warrior remake is more bloody than the original

Flying Wild Hog's Shadow Warrior remake is more over-the-top, bloody and violent than the 1997 original first-person shooter, writer Stawomir Uliasz told Polygon.

During a demo shown at Gamescom today, we saw a gameplay segment set in a temple overrun with zombies. Players have a number of weapons at their disposal to take them down: guns, katanas, a handful of magical powers and the ability to rip out demons' hearts with their hands. Players can even rip off a demon's head, stick their fingers into the neck and shoot fire out of its mouth at opponents.

The developer strove for a level of violence that was almost comic book-like, said Uliasz, or like a "Hong Kong B-level action film." The graphical power of current PCs has allowed them to do this, he said.

"The graphics are better than the original game," he said. "One feature of the original was you can slice enemies to pieces with swords. You can do that here, only now instead of just two pieces, they just all fall apart."

The demo showed this to be true; when using a katana, or even a gun, players can reduce their enemies into piles of limbs soaking in massive blood puddles. It's clear they took special care to make the best use of the hardware's power to recreate this feature in a more visually exciting way.

Uliasz said remakes of 1990s shooters — like Wolfenstein: The New Order and Rise of the Triad — are becoming more common because the old-school style was overtaken by "modern shooters" — like the Halo, Call of Duty and Borderlands games — in previous years and is now making a comeback.

"I think a lot of people love [the genre]," he said. "The old-school style has now become a fresh style — almost every company seems to be making one now. The old-school shooter is still fun.

"The niche was emptied in recent years — but now here we are."