Four words that will pique your interest in Sherwood Extreme: slow motion trick shots. Sherwood Extreme promises to deliver epic bullet-time and ridiculous co-op action in this free to play crossbow shooter from developer and publisher, CAGE Studios. I received early access to the game on Steam, and have been able to take it for a bit of a spin. While the game is still currently in Steam Early Access for PC and Mac (as of May 12, 2021), Sherwood Extreme is set to reach a full release later this year on PC, Mac, and Xbox consoles – sorry PlayStation fans! After getting my hands on the game for a little while now, what are my thoughts on it? Well…let’s talk about that!
What is Sherwood Extreme?
Sherwood Extreme is what you get when “Robin Hood’s vacation plans get busted by a horde of invading goblins, only 360 no-scopes, slow-mo headshots, and parkour can save the day. Freestyle through this 100-percent historically accurate arcade shooter, solo or with a friend. Challenge Epic and Mythic quests with daily rewards and thousands of level variations. Combine powers with a partner to triumph over mini-raids and survival modes, decking out your medieval hero with hundreds of unlockables.” Okay, so clearly this game isn’t historically accurate, but I would love to live in whatever timeline it is.
Movement
The movement in Sherwood Extreme is pretty decent, and they actually just recently added the ability to rebind your input keys, which was a feature that was missing when I started playing the game (very happy that this was added!) and is an absolute necessity in a game that’s all about movement. It feels pretty good to run around and shoot some goblins, and it’s simple enough to not confuse the average player.
Combat
Sherwood Extreme’s combat is actually pretty fun; basically all you have to do is run around and shoot some goblins in the coolest ways possible. You can jump to start your slow motion bullet-time which makes it look even cooler as you run around the map parting these goblin heads from their bodies and makes for a pretty fun gameplay loop.
Cosmetics
So, as with any game nowadays (especially free to play games), Sherwood Extreme includes an in-game store (called the “Shoppe”) that allows you to purchase visual cosmetics with which you can deck out your character. You’ve got some bundles, skins, hats, capes, flair, and loot (in-game currency with purchases up to $99.99), but in all honesty the only cosmetics that I would even think about getting are some of the skins (especially the Grim Reaper-like “Soulsucker”).
Weapons
As of now, there are currently three purchasable weapons in Sherwood Extreme including the “Minibow,” “Blast Launcher,” and the “Skull & Crossbow.” While these weapons are sure to bring a fair bit of fun to additional playthroughs, I’ve found after purchasing the Minibow that it really doesn’t change much about how I play the game. The Blast Launcher costs 750 Gems and the Skull & Crossbow costs 1,000 Gems, so I don’t think that I’ll be able to afford either of these weapons anytime soon, but maybe one day. There’s also a couple of shields that you can purchase: the Wargor Shield (Invincible ally in scope), Iron Heart (Bounce arrows & heal ally), and the Dragon Shield (Spike launch ally)
Kingdom Pass
As with many games now, Sherwood Extreme also includes a Battle Pass system called the “Kingdom Pass” which includes both a free and premium track with rewards on each path. The Kingdom Pass, however, only goes up to 30 tiers, as opposed to a typical 100, and the final rewards are a chicken head (free track) and a horse head mask (premium track).
Length
While I’m sure that the Kingdom Pass challenges, a Horde Mode, and the chase for extra weapons and cosmetics are sure to inflate playtime for a few players, I got through all 6 levels in about 20 minutes. Yeah, so it’s a very short game overall. Sure, you’ve still got various objectives to complete like getting 3 stars on each level (I’ve got a minimum of 2 on every single level, so it’s not terribly difficult), but honestly there’s not really that much of a challenge there. The only thing that could potentially increase the playtime is the Horde Mode, but there’s only so much you can do in that.
Overall, Sherwood Extreme is a pretty fun game; the movement is good, the art style is fun and allows for lower-end devices to run it with ease, the combat is fun, the only problem I have with it is that it’s just so short that you don’t even need to put an hour into the game to “beat” it. I guess it’s time to go back and beat my personal records now, right?
Follow Us
