Greetings, Wangsters! The teams at Flying Wild Hog and Devolver Digital are excited to announce that Shadow Warrior 2 will hit PS4 on May 19 and will launch with The Shadow Warrior Collection that includes a free download of Shadow Warrior for PS4!

The Shadow Warrior series began with what is lovingly referred to as Shadow Warrior Classic in 1997, continued with our 2014 reboot Shadow Warrior, and now the release of Shadow Warrior 2 on the franchise’s 20th anniversary. It’s a pretty exciting moment for us and really awesome that we get to release the game on PS4 during this important milestone in the series.

Our team has built upon this legacy of classic first-person shooter gameplay in Shadow Warrior 2 by blending fast-paced gunplay with the series’ trademark melee combat. Players will have access to dozens of weapons, from handguns and assault rifles to katanas and chainsaws, allowing them to thin the enemy horde from a distance before jumping into the fray and cutting down what remains. This interplay between ranged firing and melee combat drives Shadow Warrior 2 and forces an interesting risk-versus-reward decision for players when deciding on how to handle each combat situation.

Getting this “ninja feel” was extremely important to our team during development of Shadow Warrior 2 on PS4 and we spent a lot of time testing how switching from ranged gunplay to close quarters melee combat felt on DualShock 4. It was crucial that players be able to both aim and fire their ranged weapons at a distance and then seamlessly (and quickly) switch to melee weapons to perform brutal slashes and devastating combos at close range.

The team took great care in putting together a weapons selection configuration that took advantage of the DualShock 4’s features to keep the player in control and have all weapons at their disposal easily. The dual thumbsticks, touch pad, and directional pad can all be used in different ways to equip, charge, and execute attacks so that players really get that ninja feel while traversing the levels.

We’re proud of our results and think the PlayStation community will appreciate this attention to detail that is so crucial when playing a white knuckle FPS like Shadow Warrior 2.

The other important feature that our team (and our fans) wanted to nail was online cooperative play. Shadow Warrior 2 has a pretty slick non-linear campaign that allows players to accomplish some key missions in a specific order while veering off into side missions to collect new weapons and items while leveling up their persistent character. While it’s no doubt fun to go at it solo, Shadow Warrior 2 really shines when you have three friends tackling missions together and working as a team to take down some of the larger boss enemies together.

Shadow Warrior 2 is Flying Wild Hog’s biggest game to date and we’re thrilled that it’s arriving on PS4 next week. Our hope is that fans of the first game will appreciate how Shadow Warrior 2 takes everything to the next level and that new players will enjoy the free download of Shadow Warrior alongside their purchase of Shadow Warrior 2.

Thanks for all your support along the way and big thanks to our friends at PlayStation for helping make this release possible.