Shadowgun Legends review - A challenger for the best FPS on mobile?

What would happen if mercenaries were treated like rockstars? That's the premise behind Shadowgun Legends, the latest in Madfinger's shooty shooty bang bang franchise.

It's going to draw comparisons to Destiny, but it's more than that. It's sort of like what would happen if Saints Row and Bungie's MMO shooter started getting it on in the back of a frat party.

It's brash and silly, swaggering in all the right ways, and in a week where the likes of PUBG and Fortnite are stealing the headlines, it's a shooter that's built from the ground up for mobile.

Legendary

After some preamble, building your character, and a fluffy bit of plot, you're chucked into the action. If you've played a mobile shooter before you know what to expect here.

Thumb on the left of the screen moves you about, thumb on the right side of the screen lets you look around. The default settings will fire whenever your reticle is over an enemy, but you can change them if you want.

Double tapping the screen lets you look down your sights. Get a bit further into the game and you'll unlock rechargeable special moves, which appear as buttons on the bottom of the screen.

The violence itself is pretty straightforward. It's crunching in all the right ways, and you'll easily be infected by the rhythm of quick levels and quicker rewards. Because for all the showy graphics and grandstanding, Shadowgun Legends is a game about the numbers.

Every level you complete, your numbers are going to go up. Your XP, your fame, the power of the armour and weapons you've got equipped. Even a couple of minutes play gives you some sort of progression.

And that makes for a fearsomely strong compulsion loop. Dipping in and out becomes bashing through a couple of hours. And the first time you see your statue displayed in the central hub, a reward that awaits the best players, you sort of feel like it's all been worthwhile.

Shadowy

No, it's not the most original game in the world. And its mission do tend to get a bit repetitive, funnelling you from A to B to get C and then blow something up. But there's so much more going on here.

The multiplayer, both competitive and cooperative is some of the best I've seen on mobile. The social aspects are all perfectly in place too, and there's no energy system to keep you from slaughtering to your heart's content.

Shadowgun Legends is a brilliantly balanced, eminently entertaining slice of mobile gaming. It's furious when it needs to be, it knows what you want, and it's not afraid to give it you. I think we have a new contender for the best FPS on mobile.