Unless you’ve been living under a rock that doesn’t get WiFi or phone service you’re likely familiar with how invasive loot boxes have gotten in gaming. They even drew controversy to one of my favorite games of 2017 – Shadow of War – which coincidentally includes the one of the key words in the title. So when I saw that there was a game that was mocking loot boxes to such an extent that they’re one of the main elements of the game and the game doesn’t even let you use real money for them I was instantly intrigued.
Shadow of Loot Box throws you into a dungeon without the ability to do much of anything. In fact, until you level up, literally all you can do is walk and look. You can’t jump, run, or shoot. Heck, you can’t even interact with switches or doors! Throughout the first level you’ll level up a few times, earn your abilities, and then escape… But maybe you shouldn’t have escaped at all because you’ll soon be greeted by a rather iconic gentleman who informs you that another settlement needs your help. Believe it or not, there are actually people in this universe that won’t hesitate to mock Bethesda games! The horror!
The rest of the game consists of doing whatever it takes to move to the next level. Many of them involve getting keys through completing quests but you’ll also be challenged to an escort mission with an annoying (on purpose) AI, dealing with levels that are (purposely) glitchy, and solving a puzzle that’s (purposely) incomplete to make it even more challenging.
While there are plenty of different things going on, the majority of my time was spent shooting at a handful of types of enemies. The main enemies are mimics – spidery, animated treasure chests – but then there are also mini, explosive loot boxes and mimics that shoot projectiles. You’re given an infinite amount of ammo in your primary gun and can swap to a shotgun, rifle, or rocket launcher once you unlock them, but they all have limited ammo that you can only get out of loot boxes. You get free loot boxes in each level by completing optional challenges or just finding hidden ones, but like all loot boxes what you find inside is random. You can get health, ammo for each of the guns, or experience. Leveling up allows you to unlock upgrades that let you obtain more ammo in loot boxes, increase rifle and shotgun damage, or increase your maximum health. What I wanted more than anything though was an increase to the primary weapon damage because it took NINE frickin shots to kill a standard enemy! The little explosive loot boxes only took two, but the projectile firing mimics took even more than the standard enemies to kill. To make matters worse none of the guns have a scope to look through and if enemies are more than a few feet away you’re likely to miss quite a bit with your shots. Oh, and you’ll often end up fighting more than one enemy at a time, so be prepared to shoot 20-35 times while moving backwards a lot!
On the bright side, Shadow of Loot Box really utilizes its mockery skills well. If you can name a topic that’s related to gaming from the last decade or so it’s probably in here. Glitches? Check. Cut content for future DLC? Check. Being able to buy your way past the majority of a level? You’ve got it! There’s even a particularly hilarious fetch quest that asked me to get four blue mushrooms for someone and all four were within about 10 feet of him! One whole level is all about completing pointless achievements like jumping a bunch of times or squishing innocent bugs, and you can just buy one of the $5 or $10 loot boxes to skip up to two of the achievements. Don’t worry by the way, you’ll get some “money” at the beginning of the game, and then you can earn some more in the game if you’re okay with watching an ad or letting it mine for cryptocurrency. In fact, as I mentioned before, while the game offers you the ability to buy loot boxes with money you absolutely CANNOT actually spend real money in the game. Even its mockery of the beloved Preston Garvey is rather spectacular, and there’s an area of the game that looks and sounds like Skyrim and has survival elements that require you to find food to eat and fires to keep warm.
I really don’t know how I’d feel about Shadow of Loot Box if the gameplay was quicker, using more enemies that take less hits to kill and actually pose a threat. With that primary gameplay element fixed this could potentially have been a really fun game! It’s perhaps a bit ironic that a game that mocks the cliches and tropes of other games is rather successful with its humor but falls flat due to its gameplay. Whereas I might play Fallout 4 for (hundreds of) hours avoiding the story and just having fun, in Shadow of Loot Box I felt like I was trying to rush from joke to joke, savoring the dialog and what each level would require of me but not actually enjoying the gameplay between it all.
Shadow of Loot Box is available on PS4 (reviewed), Xbox One, Switch, and Steam (Windows).
A review code was provided for this review.