The game roughly follows the plot of the movie, where The Shadow fights crime in New York city, until he is confronted by the evil mastermind Shiwan Khan.

The Shadow was developed by British studio Ocean Software, which was famous for acquiring licenses for games based on major motion pictures during this period.

Ocean's vice president of development, Gary Bracey, considered The Shadow as the next big movie license after the company's Batman.

Though not particularly impressed with the script for The Shadow, Bracey was able to meet with the film's director Russell Mulcahy and star Alec Baldwin while optioning the game tie-in.

[14][15][16][17][18] Next Generation reviewed the SNES version of the game, rating it two stars out of five, and stated that "The Shadow boils down to a 'take-it-or-leave-it' no-brainer of a title".