Shadow Fight 3
Shadow Fight 3 offers detailed graphics and engaging combat, but its aggressive pay-to-win mechanics, frequent ads, and numerous bugs make it a questionable value, especially for free players.
Shadow Fight 3 is praised for its detailed graphics, fun combat, and challenging bosses, but it is heavily criticized for being pay-to-win, with many essential items and event victories locked behind purchases or extensive grinding. Players also report frequent ads, bugs, lag, and connectivity issues that hinder the experience.
Free vs paid
The free version of Shadow Fight 3 allows players to experience the detailed graphics, combat mechanics, and storyline R3R30R140. However, free players will encounter significant difficulty progressing, especially against bosses and in events, without paying for better gear R4R20R35. Many essential items and event victories are described as being behind paywalls or requiring an unreasonable amount of grinding R63R20R29R35. The game also features frequent, long, and unskippable ads for free users R4R7R28. Paid players can bypass these difficulties by purchasing powerful gear, event passes, and other in-game items, effectively making the game pay-to-win R4R20R29R35.
Value complaints
- The game is heavily pay-to-win, requiring purchases to progress or win events.R4R20R29R35
- Bosses and events are unfairly difficult, almost impossible to beat without paid gear.R4R12R14R19
- The game has an excessive number of ads, often long and unskippable, appearing after every mission or action.R4R7R27R28
- Progression systems are predatory, requiring extensive grinding or payment for currency and upgrades.R29R35R54R63
- Online PvP and ranked modes are dead, filled with bots, or unfair due to pay-to-win gear.R32R194R266R284
Where it delivers
Evidence note: Reviews are heavily skewed towards complaints about pay-to-win mechanics, ads, and bugs, despite a high lifetime rating. Many positive reviews are very brief and lack specific details.
Frequently asked
Is Shadow Fight 3 a pay-to-win game?
Does Shadow Fight 3 have a lot of ads?
Are there technical issues like lag or bugs in Shadow Fight 3?
Is the gameplay in Shadow Fight 3 repetitive?
What reviewers actually said
Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.
- [R4] P2W: Cool game, events seem a bit rigged. Equipment is HELLA important. You could beat a better geared person but that might mean hitting then 5 times as many times before they land a very few good blows. Commercials are like 5 times longer and don’t give the option to exit even when complete.
- [R20] Worse game in existence: First of all the game experience is so bad everything is pay to win and if I come back to play this game I have to pay to complete any event since my gear isn’t good enough and I am not paying shi for this game that I won’t play in future this game is ruined and this game developer never listened to their community so it would be better if this game shuts down
- [R29] This game is horrible: I’ve played this game for countless hours and each time I’ve noticed how much this game is pay to win or spend countless hours grinding for gear it’s horrible and I hate it do not get this game
- [R35] TRASH: Pure pay to win trash of a game. If you don't pay of grind your soul out, you won't do a thing in this stupid game. Like you can't even win events without paying. Winning events give you gears but what's the point if you have to pay first? And skill? There is nothing called skills in this stupid game. Pay to be good or be trash that's the Motto of this game. Wannabe pioneer of a game compan
- [R12] The bots are unreasonably difficult in adventure mode. The developers are awful. · translated
- [R14] DONT DO IT: Would not recommend to anybody. Like a game that constantly cheats. And I mean cheats. You be winning then all the sudden your controls won’t work or they do the opposite of what you did. DONT recommend it at all.
- [R19] This game sucks: This game doesn’t react well at all the bots hit you like 5 times before your guy even hits once
- [R7] Very good GSME: Very fun game with lots of different things to do but has way to many adds.It seams like the more you play the game the more often you get ad at first there were practically never adds but now I get them after every mission.
- [R27] Too many ads: Every minute or two, I'm forced to watch a video ad. It's a terrible user experience. · translated
- [R28] Bugs/button sticks: The “control” button to move around sticks in certain spots. I know for a fact thats been there since 2020…and the fact the game continues to crash. What’re we doing besides adding 60 ads popping up every time you back out of something? Holy smoly jimbo. Worse than youtube and twitch ads brother.
- [R54] ..: How am I supposed to upgrade my weapon when every time I defeat a boss it doesn’t give me any upgrades any time u pass a level you need to pay to get an upgrade or it’s literally impossible to upgrade your weapon or armor great graphics and easy to control just impossible to upgrade without paying $10+ any time u wanna upgrade
- [R63] Event and new duel: So I love the game it’s great really fun but the only issue is that is not free to play friendly most the stuff you have to spend days grinding for just to have a small chance to get it and most the good stuff are locked behind pay walls and most the hard challenges in events are hard if you don’t have the sets you pay for
- [R32] Good game but…: I got this game around when it came out and it was absolutely amazing. But now it just so mid. The online pvp is pretty much dead and useless and as someone that complete the story there is quite literally nothing to do. The void battles aren’t worth it cause you have to GRIND to even get good rewards. It’s not worth it. You used to be able to quickly get up to higher ranks in rank
- [R194] Duals.: I genuinely hate with my whole soul how the duals are set up. and the game is PAY TO WIN i’ve grew up on this game and i genuinely dislike how hard duals can be if you DONT PAY TO WIN either they get stronger after the health and gone or the stupid crow just attacks and makes you bleed 4x DMG? devs PLEASE fix this
- [R266] unfair fights: i dont get why the game cant just give an actual way of giving resources to help instead of one gem after having to defeat bolo on insane, and the online matches are unfair bc i keep getting queued up with the same two people called collection officer and spy, literally just now i had to fight them but they were invisible,i dealt the most damage but they still won the points, you s
- [R284] Pay to win but still playable: The game itself is fun and challenging however the bosses are overpowered and can be frustrating when you dominate them just for them to kill you in 2 hits or to run and heal to full after you beat them half to death and you run out of time. The duels are also annoying because someone will have the op armour which just makes you have stupid powers and are genuinely u
- [R3] THE BEST: THIS IS LIKE THE MOST DETAILED MOBILE GAME IVE EVER PLAYED SO I RECOMMEND THIS
- [R26] Crazy: This game is actually like a real game
- [R30] Shadow fight 3: The game is good but shadow fight 2 is better the movements are good but the combat is a little slower by the way good designs of armor and weapons and the kusarigama is better weapon in shadow fight 2
- [R33] ADD MORE ANIMATIONS: Great game, I've been playing it for a while, but my favorite set, buried centurion, doesn't have an intro or outro animation! I'd also like an easier way to get those blank spheres to purchase ones of your choice.
- [R2] Awesome: This game is very good and fun
- [R6] Good: My favorite phone game since 2018 can it be in ps please
- [R8] One of the best games ever: Excellent game by all standards
- [R11] Love the challenge: One of the best
- [R40] Very good game: I grew up playing Nikki's games and out of all the games I think shadow fight 3 is the best one because not only do you get a better storyline you also get to fight people based off of your experience in the game.
- [R77] In my top three games: I genuinely have no words for this game. I thought it was gonna be one of those lame. Low effort games when I first downloaded it, but it’s actually has fun fights a relatively good storyline challenging bosses that don’t bore you and keep your attention I have nothing that I dislike about this game keep doing the good work.
- [R140] Good Game but Greedy Decisions: The combat in this game is pretty good for a mobile title. Timing, precision, and varying up your moves are at its core. There a plethora of game modes to keep you entertained. Each weapon style is unique and there are enough weapons, armor sets, and abilities to make this game feel like an RPG. Your character and their equipment truly feel like your own. With th
- [R323] PAY TO PLAY: It’s a great game, no doubt. Amazing graphic, Decent storyline, Excellent interface Unfortunately it’s pay to play. You cannot advance without paying. I played it and got hooked immediately, but here are the down sides: You can only level up through the main story Acquiring the currency is EXTREMELY difficult. Beating Sarge as a f2p is almost impossible. Overall great game tho.
- [R1] I need help: Yeah idk what to say I need help the loading screen just stays frozen my internet is strong I checked this just happened randomly
- [R5] Lag bugs freezes: This game constantly lags and has tons of bugs. It’s almost impossible to play at times really annoying and the developers really don’t care you tell them that the game has a problem and they don’t help.
- [R10] Không hài lòng: Lúc nào cũng mang yếu dù wifi rất mạnh chả chơi dc
- [R17] Chest and rewards: I am unable to open any of my 3 chest after earning countless keys through duels or throughout the game I tried uninstalling and refreshing it also reached out to support but I am still unable to open my chest
- [R25] An absolute (NOT) classic.: This game is repetitive, just the same fight over an over spamming the same combo and missing one move and getting pulled into an inescapable combo for the rest of eternity and that makes me want to GENUINELY eat bugs but otherwise it's mid, people who call this classic and say bring back 2017 should realize they were 3 days old in 2017😂
Synthesized from 120 recent App Store reviews · updated July 2026 · View on the App Store