Samurai Shodown
SAMURAI REBOOT! A brand new SAMURAI SHODOWN game takes aim for the world stage!
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- Released
- 1993
- Developer
- SNK
- Platforms
- 3 systems
- Critics
- Not scored
- Steam Deck
- verified
- Download
- 35 GB
What is Samurai Shodown?
SAMURAI REBOOT! A brand new SAMURAI SHODOWN game takes aim for the world stage!
Description as published by the developer on its own store page, read 30 August 2026. It is marketing copy, not our assessment.
The record
| First released | 11 August 1993 |
|---|---|
| Developer | SNK |
| Publisher | SNK |
| Platforms | Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Steam Deck |
| Genres | Fighting |
| Languages | 11 supported |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata Q1209867, seeded 30 August 2026. Store data from Steam, read 30 August 2026.
How was Samurai Shodown received?
Method. Player figures are Steam's own totals for the PC version, read 30 August 2026. The Metacritic score is the one Steam publishes on its store page and can lag the site itself. Neither is our opinion. We have not published a review of this game.
Accessibility
Seeing
None declared
Hearing
None declared
Input
- Full controller support
Difficulty
None declared
Method. Features the publisher declared on its own store page. A declaration is a floor, not a review.
What does it support?
| Capability | Support |
|---|---|
| Controller | full support |
| Cloud saves | Yes |
| Cross-platform play | No |
| Mod support | No official workshop |
| Online play | Yes |
| In-game purchases | No |
| Steam Deck | verified |
| Download size | 35 GB |
| Add-on content | 12 DLC listed |
| Age gate | None |
Content descriptors
- Frequent violence or gore
- General mature content
Method. Read from the publisher's Steam listing on 30 August 2026. Describes the PC version. Console versions differ.
Is Samurai Shodown worth it?
81% of 1,722 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. Its price is not listed.
That is the data, not a verdict for sale: whether it is worth it depends on the price you pay and what you want. Players do report problems — see the reported-problems section below before buying. We have not published our own review of this game.
How long is Samurai Shodown? How long to beat it
Total play time for Samurai Shodown is about 5 hours to do everything, and around 1.3 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 1.3h | 48 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 3.6h | 4 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 5h | 5 |
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
Where Samurai Shodown sits on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueSamurai Shodown plotted on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so its position is its real one. Change either axis to see where it lands.
1 games have both
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- Nintendo
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
Estimated sales for Samurai Shodown
These are estimates, not reported figures. SNK has not published unit sales for Samurai Shodown, and nobody outside the company can measure them. What follows is arithmetic on the review count, with the method printed below so you can check it or reject it.
How this was calculated
Steam sales track review counts closely enough that dividing one by the other across games with published figures gives a usable multiplier. This is the standard method for estimating sales from outside a publisher.
| Reviews on Steam | 1,722 |
|---|---|
| Sales per review | 30 to 60 |
| List price | Not recorded |
| Assumed average selling price | 33% to 66% of list |
What this cannot tell you
Steam only. Console, Epic, GOG and retail sales are not in here. For a game that sold heavily on PlayStation this is a fraction of the real number.
The band is wide because the method is imprecise. Review rates vary with price, genre, launch era and how insistently a game asks. Published analyses put the ratio between 30 and 60 for paid games, and we show the whole range rather than picking a point in it.
The owner estimate above measures something else. SteamSpy counts accounts that have the game, which includes free weekends, bundles, giveaways and gifts. It sits higher than a sales figure for that reason, and the two are not alternative answers to the same question.
Revenue is the shakiest line. It assumes an average selling price well below list because most copies move in sales, and it ignores regional pricing, refunds, key resellers and whatever deal the publisher actually has with Valve. Treat it as an order of magnitude, not a figure.
If SNK publishes a real number we will use that instead and say where it came from. Our editorial policy covers how we handle figures we cannot verify.
What readers say about Samurai Shodown
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
Loading reviews…
Problems players report
We read the 119 most recent negative Steam reviews of Samurai Shodown on 30 August 2026 and counted what they mention. These are complaints, not confirmed defects: we have not reproduced any of them, and a review describes one person's machine. What the counts tell you is which problems more than one person ran into.
- Servers and connection20 of 119 (17%)
The original netcode barely works, and the experimental rollback in the beta test code doesn't work at all.
Steam review, 11 February 2023 · 1 hours played · 68 readers marked it helpfulNo crossplay even between EGS and Steam versions Getting a match requires joining a discord server, asking if someone wants to play, waiting 30 minutes (minimum) to get a response and the atrocious netcode will ruin the match anyway.
Steam review, 24 January 2022 · 32 hours played · 68 readers marked it helpful - Launchers, accounts and anti-cheat7 of 119 (6%)
Not only that, but their always on DRM can not detect your internet.
Steam review, 5 June 2024 · 3 hours played · 111 readers marked it helpfulApparently they've added always online DRM and now I can't launch it.
Steam review, 7 June 2024 · 5 hours played · 83 readers marked it helpful - Crashes and freezes7 of 119 (6%)
The rollback isn't being implemented properly, so there's insane visual rubber-banding, duplicate audio sfx, and I even experienced several game-breaking soft-lock crashes all in under an hour.
Steam review, 11 February 2023 · 1 hours played · 68 readers marked it helpfulfirst of all, it just doesn't run very well, you'll experience crashes and freezes here and there.
Steam review, 18 June 2021 · 1,076 hours played · 28 readers marked it helpful - Will not launch or install6 of 119 (5%)
Apparently they've added always online DRM and now I can't launch it.
Steam review, 7 June 2024 · 5 hours played · 83 readers marked it helpfulYou cant even launch it on windows 11 without adjusting launch options.
Steam review, 11 March 2026 · 0 hours played · 33 readers marked it helpful
Counted by keyword across review text, so a review discussing two problems is counted under both. Read the reviews yourself.
Did it run on your PC?
Tell other players how it ran on your machine. One tap, from your saved PC if you have one.
Where Samurai Shodown appears
The ranked lists and finder pages Samurai Shodown qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
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Common questions about Samurai Shodown
What platforms is Samurai Shodown on?
Samurai Shodown is available on Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Steam Deck. It first released in 1993.
Do players recommend Samurai Shodown?
81% of 1,722 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. That is players rating it, not our review. We have not published a review of this game.
Does Samurai Shodown work on Steam Deck?
Valve rates Samurai Shodown as verified on the Steam Deck, from its own testing. That means it works out of the box with no configuration.
How big is the Samurai Shodown download?
35 GB on PC, from the storage requirement on its Steam listing. Console versions differ.
Who made Samurai Shodown?
Samurai Shodown was developed by SNK and published by SNK.
Is Samurai Shodown worth it in 2026?
81% of 1,722 Steam reviews are positive (Very Positive), and its price is not listed. That is the strongest signal we hold; "worth it" depends on the price you pay and what you want, so weigh the sentiment against the current price above.
How long does it take to beat Samurai Shodown?
about 1.3 hours for the main story, 3.6 hours with the main extras, 5 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.