ShooterofIO: Shadows

***ShooterofIO: Shadows*** is a first-person shooter video game developed by SOI Studios. The game is published by Monsteristic. It is available on Xbox Series X/S, Playstation 5, and Microsoft Windows. The game is the nineth game in the ShooterofIO franchise and is the first game by SOI Studios to be featured outside of the Modern Ops universe. Announced on June 22nd 2016, it was released on November 16th 2016.

SOI Studios went rogue on the formula that made ShooterofIO the franchise it is today, and turned all the gameplay mechanics upside down to create *Shadows*. It's a complete redo for the franchise; and is hoped to be kept for a long time now.

## Gameplay

Unlike to its predecessors, *ShooterofIO: Shadows* focuses heavely on gameplay instead of story. As the game is set in the near future, it features new and powerful machines, drones, and technology based weapons. The game doesn't have a Campaign or Story Mode, meaning the game would be mainly Multiplayer based.

The Multiplayer mode features 6 maps at launch, all of them being huge and highly developed. *Shadows* offers players a way to easily and powerfully customize their loadouts with a brand new feature known as the *Workbench*, which enables players to equip upwards of 6 attachments to their weapons, and can easily make them the best-weapon ever, and thanks for the maps being so big, players are able to call in Air Craft into the games. Multiplayer features plenty of open-world suitable modes, with old ones being completely re-designed and made to suit the new formula. Standard: Team Deathmatch, Free-for-All (now, War), Domination, Hardpoint, Capture the Flags (now more than one flag), and Objective Rounds. Each mode offers a different type of playstyle for each.

The game features a powerful Level Creator for a new mode called *Operations*. A community driven experience, that allows players to create missions for the community. The Level Creator is known as the *SOI Editor*. With this editor, players aren't creating Multiplayer maps nor experiences; but instead can create a world with Objective driven gameplay. Each "map" can be created with upwards of 20 Objectives or less, and can choose how difficult each one can be by placing spawn points for enemies, player-checkpoints, and other aspects that affect gameplay in a Campaign type of experience. However, SOI Studios allowed players to make 'Survival Experiences' with the *SOI Editor*.

## Development

The game is developed by SOI Studios. Unlike previous installments of the *ShooterofIO* franchise, *ShooterofIO: Shadows* was developed with the intention to offer community-driven fun. SOI Studios knew they didn't want to make a Story for this game, so they wanted to make a feature that would get the community to do some developing of their own --- which was how the *SOI Editor* was created. A powerful Level Maker that allowed the community to design Campaign Levels.

Multiplayer was originally going to be the classic 6v6 combat style, until the studio went rogue and remade it into something much different.

## Reception

### Critical response

*ShooterofIO: Shadows* recieved top-tier reviews on all platforms, according to the Game Awards company that was rewards games with nominations every year. The game received praise for its huge amount of innovation and huge amount of new content that was given to the game in post-launch. The fans expressed how the game felt so different that it felt like it was the first time they ever played a *ShooterofIO* title.

SOI Studios was also rewarded with top-developer from Monsteristic, who also gave a bit of intel "We would like to thank all the three Studios (SOI Studios, Air Studios, and War Games) for all their effort with the COVID 19 production plan and how well we've been doing throughout. We've been pushing out games that are all unique and different. But due to the response of the community of fans of the franchise, SOI Studios was given "top-developer" role this time around thanks to the amount of effort and how successfull *ShooterofIO: Shadows* is to the *ShooterofIO* franchise. Thank you all for all the effort you've put in! We look forward to the future."

## Trivia

* ShooterofIO: Shadows feels like a mix of Call of Duty and Battlefield.