Recent reviews by ghostwriter

Remember Vector? Remember hunting down PMCs in a cave as Price and Soap? Well then, as of update 1.11, the Vector is now in the game and New World Interactive have made it the most OP two-tap kill machine that shouldn't exist in this game... Yet it is the most enjoyable gun to experience you can get in a multiplayer shooter right now. Whether you're racking up a massive kill count on Domination, leading the charge on Push or Firefight it elevates the gameplay to another level. Plus instead of devaluing certain slower strategies, it also reinforces the value of them by allowing you to mow down rushing players. A single gun has made the game more dynamic.

Plus, the best part of 1.11 isn't even the gun, it's the new gamemode Ambush. This is like old school Counter-Strike 1.6, where the Security team has to escort a VIP to one of the zones and allow him to extract. And unlike CS, the VIP can pick up guns. This is a one life, 8 round slug fest that usually devolves into the funniest most exciting banter between the rounds, with the canonical name for the VIP being 'El Presidente'. I've had rounds were we're trying to stop El Presidente from taking back his 'glue factory' on Refinery and where we're helping him run for reelection on Ministry. It's the most funniest, laugh till you hurt on your sides, yet serious gameplay that I've not felt since first discovering de_ modes on CS over a decade ago.

The only caveat to this great game is the really aggressive monetization of skins that NWI are doing. But the skins are all purchasable separately and completely cosmetic, so you can mix and match, especially as they go on sale after they stop being the newest of the bunch.

Tl;Dr: 1.11 brings the Vector and one of the best game modes, Ambush, in any multiplayer competitive shooter in over a decade. Get this game, and play it, you wont regret it, even at full price.

Hey look, the game was declared dead by the developer. Wow, who could have forseen that alienating your playerbase will make them leave.

When Shadow Arena launched it was an fun take on one of Black Desert Online limited game modes made into a full game. BDO combat mechanics are one of the best in the genre with a bit of unbalanced jankyness thrown on top of it. But that is the very charm of it, reminding me a bit of Gunz the Duel, which had janky mechanics at the core of its high level gameplay. The choice in gameplay was very rewarding when the game first launched, having sort of a lite version of BDOs combat that was faster to pick up but still had a high skill cap to master.
At some point, the devs decided to remove solos and force trios making most of the player base, including myself, leave. I came back to this game almost a year later now that solos are back to see if the game still captivated me like it did. Sadly, I can safely say, that this game is dead, its charm and soul ripped from its core mechanics.

- 20 player lobbies are now 8 player lobbies, grace period extended from 4 -> 5 minutes. Lobbies feel empty, there is almost no PvP action at any point of the game, which was the whole point of Shadow Arena in the first place.
- No more item acquisition from anything besides the shop. You spend 95% of time grinding random mobs in the middle of nowhere. There are no longer any objectives to fight over, no gear to get from mobs or killing opponents. This incentivizes passive mindless gameplay that is dull and boring.
- Reworked the abilities. Removed 1 ability from all heroes, making core combos that were once the core of this game pointless. Removed baseline kick and made it as a choosable ability which you never take, because they added stunlock bullsh*t which is now mandatory to take. This has just gutted the whole gameplay and flow for the game instead of augmenting and improving it.
- Added main ability alternatives picking. While good in theory, now your previously removed ability can be picked again... to replace one of your other ones. So you still lose an ability, and you don't even get to pick which one. Also you can now pick alt styles for your abilities which are absolutely useless as most heroes were supposed to play/combo in a certain way. Fumbling around with these just makes your playing experience worse.
- Reduced health from 10,000 -> 6,000 which means now you get nuked even faster if you don't know what you are doing or get initiated in a bad position. If you are new you have almost no way of fighting against the experienced players that will stomp you, removing your chances of improving at the game.
- Removed one of the most underrated mechanics of Shadow Arena - ability leveling. I don't think any other battle royale had anything like this and made the game unique in the genre. Making it a choice on what abilities to level and if and when to get level 4 bonuses that augmented them with further bonuses was super rewarding. It gave the game another layer of mastery, where you could be down in gear but up in ability levels which would allow you to outplay your opponent. In addition, it made the early game way more tense and tactical as everyone had just 1 ability and couldn't bust out their strongest combos. But that is now gone and you can be hit with a stunlock combo as soon as you spawn.
- Jump towers and the start of the game drop are now random. You have no choice on where you want to go besides a little nudge. This is a tactical nightmare. Map movement is now slower than molasses.
- There is now only 1 large objective spawn on the map at a time, compared to the previous 2 or 3. Players that have the lead can extend their lead even further, making the games really snowbally. Especially frustrating if you are on the wrong side of the map.
- They added fog so you don't even know where players are unless you get close to them. This can be mitigated by going to a light tower... which also gives you maphacks by putting nearby players on the map. You can use this to farm grace period kills on players to get massive amounts of gold from weak players, spawncamping them until they give up or the grace period runs over and they die for good. Absolutely stupid mechanic that makes the game worse for EVERYONE.
- Summons have been removed. Were they busted? Yes. Were they absolutely funny to get and play as? Also yes. Kind of a balance change but makes the game more boring as it changed the dynamic of turning it into a cat and mouse game which was super fun to be on either end.
- Movement is now super slow and getting trapped in a stunlock is easier than it was before because dodges are now on a cooldown. Ranged classes are even more abusive than they were before.

This was a small game with a semi-high skill cap, dedicated community and different mechanics to most battle royale games. After a year, this game is barely a shadow of it's former self, with reduced mechanics, spawnkilling, permanent maphacks and most of all with boring and dull gameplay where you just hit mobs for days doing nothing, find the occasional enemy player, destroy them or get destroyed in an instant. I'm honestly shocked how a game with so much potential got gutted completely with so many small back-to-back bad choices by the devs. Avoid this game unless they return it back to what it once was, because I have very little faith it can be saved from the mess it is now.