Well-Reviewed 2022 Game Shadow Dropped for PS5

Summary

Shadows Over Loathing, a wacky RPG, surprised Sony fans with its recent release on PlayStation 4 and 5.
The game features a unique art style, turn-based combat, and a focus on dialogue inspired by text-based games.
Its predecessor, West of Loathing, is still console-exclusive to Nintendo Switch.

The popular RPG Shadows Over Loathing was recently released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 systems. The drop was an unexpected but pleasant surprise for Sony fans, allowing many of them to experience the unashamedly wacky world of Shadows Over Loathing for the first time.

Shadows Over Loathing is the follow-up to the 2017 title West of Loathing. While the latter sports an Old West aesthetic, Shadows is set in a Gothic, Prohibition-era America. Both games feature chaotic turn-based combat and a purposefully simplistic monochrome art style. Instead of gunning for the highest level of visual fidelity, the Loathing series opts for stick-figure characters and landscapes that look straight out of Microsoft Paint. The plainness of the art style is well-suited to the series’ emphasis on dialogue, which was inspired by classic text-based games like Zork.

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By Jessica Filby

In a recent Twitter post by developer and publisher Asymmetric Publications, it was revealed that Shadows of Loathing had been shadow-dropped onto the digital PlayStation Store on May 15, 2025. Priced at $22.99, the store listing describes the game as “the shady side of an already black-and-white world.”

Wacky RPG Shadows of Loathing Receives PlayStation Port

Shadows was well-received by critics upon its initial release in 2022, and it currently boasts an “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating on Steam. The PlayStation port marks an end to the title’s console exclusivity. Aside from its PC versions, Shadows had only been available on the Switch. This continues a trend of previously exclusive games migrating from Nintendo to Sony and vice versa.

The timing of this announcement is somewhat strange given that Shadows’ prequel, West of Loathing, is still console exclusive to the Nintendo Switch, but perhaps it’s a sign that the latter title will be ported in the future as well. Regardless, Asymmetric Publications is well-known for the bizarre sense of humor in its games, so Sony fans in the mood for some giggles will be grateful that Shadows Over Loathing has made the jump to PlayStation.

The Loathing franchise began with the beloved browser-based MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing, which first launched back in 2003. Kingdom was originally a joke game that was created in less than a month, so many of its mechanics were created and named arbitrarily. In many ways, the slapdash roots of the series can still be seen in the present day with Shadows Over Loathing. “Meat” remains the primary currency instead of dollars or gold, and the game includes unusual RPG character classes such as Pig Skinner and Jazz Agent. The inexplicable nature of Loathing’s lore is one of the reasons that fans enjoy the series so much, and the recent release of Shadows on PlayStation will bring that same silliness to a wider audience.