Middle-earth: Shadow of War Preview: The Lord of War
Apr. 26, 2017Middle-earth: Shadow of War Preview: The Lord of War
Shadow of War continues the narrative from Shadow of Mordor as the events take place between the events told in The Hobbit and The Lord of Rings. In the game you continue the story of ranger Talion who shares his body with the spirit of elf lord Celebrimbor, as they work together to use a Ring of Power to build an army to stand against Sauron and his deadly Nazgul. The story finds Talion still bound to Celebrimbor, and with a new Ring of Power. Celebrimbor believes this ring can be controlled to prevent falling into shadow, and instead use it to become a stable and powerful king. Talion agrees with Celebrimbor that it’s a worthy cause to pursue and consents in the name of defeating Sauron.
The setting of Middle-Earth is familiar to many and the game will traverse iconic locations in the franchise’s lore. For diehard fans of the series, it’s hard to ask for much more than an opportunity to do battle in the environments we’ve spent so much time daydreaming about.
Shadow of War is a 3rd person action RPG that is set in an open world setting, and builds off of Shadow of Mordor. Taking on the role of Talion the ranger you will make use of his natural combat and athletic abilities and then augment them with the more supernatural abilities conferred to you by Celebrimbor. As you complete quests and objectives you will be using a mix of both abilities. In a departure from the previous game which focused more on hack and slash, Shadow of War will be much more rooted in the Action RPG gameplay, giving more freedom of choice and decisions making, which should make every playthrough its own unique entity.
The game expands upon the innovative Nemesis system introduced in the first game. Building on the return of foes with a grudge, the Nemesis system will now apply to more of the world including other characters called Followers whose behavior will be determined by how you interact with them. You will be able to gain Followers from several races in Middle-earth such as Uruk-Hai and Olog-hai. These followers can then be strategized to complete missions for you! You will be covering some deep themes like betrayal, loyalty and friendship and your choices will result in dynamic far reaching consequences. For example if you capture a city, you may be in a situation to decide who is in charge, whether you name a loyal follower the overseer, or give the title to a veteran war chief will have consequences going forward. The battle systems will now enable large-scale battles where parts of the battle will then be managed by the Followers you have recruited to your cause, allowing you to focus on the brutal and addicting close quarter combat. At its basic level, the scarring feature of the Nemesis system is being expanded upon, allowing for even more savage marking of the foes who survive facing you.
The combat in this iteration is something Monolith has been keeping close to their vests for the time being, and understandably so, as that was a big component of the first game’s appeal. It’s only natural that there are going to be some significant evolution to the formula which combined fluid 3rd person combat reminiscent of the recent Batman games while adding in wonderful stealth mechanics. The little we’ve seen looks like it’s going to be that but turned up to 11, which is always a good thing! Dominating enemies will allow you to gain access to some intel on the enemies in the area.
As you progress through infiltrating an area, you can use a manner of different ways to scan your enemies and take them out using the map’s verticality to climb and advance. You will also be fighting alongside more allies in large scale battles giving the game quite the epic scope, especially as you fight among some massive locations and cities like Minas Ithil, as well as a much more diverse collection of regions each with their own tribes. The culture of the orc tribe in control of a particular region will affect how that area looks and how the orcs who belong to that tribe look themselves.
Beyond the added depth of the Nemesis system, the game will feature more customization and more loot bringing it more in line with an RPG, as well as further refinement to the first game’s addicting and brutal combat. The weapons and armor you can find have been expanded upon to fall more in line with RPG games, and they’ve been changed to now have rarity and gem sockets that can augment the weapons further. You can equip a main weapon, off-hand weapon, ranged weapon, armor, cape, and a ring of power that you can inscribe runes on. They all have distinct visual looks that will allow you to personalize your fashion.
To earn high powered weaponry you’ll have to target some tougher enemies. The rare weapons have added attributes such as elemental damage and some feature challenges that you can complete to unlock even more attributes. You can unlock gem slots on your gear by paying currency and once you do you can slot gems you’ve looted from enemies.
Runes act like equipment but are inscribed on your ring of power. The runes confer passive abilities when equipped. The runes you can use add even more situational attributes and will combine to compliment a variety of playstyles. This all works to marry the lore to the gameplay as your ring features prominently in both.
All the items you equip in your gear slots are part of sets, and equipping several pieces from the same set (from weapons to runes) will unlock extra set bonuses for your individual pieces of gear. Once you complete an outfit set you unlock complimentary bonuses across all of your pieces of gear.
Skills and abilities available to you have been significantly expanded. Instead of just purchasing a skill and being done with it, you can now modify unlocked skills further via its own upgrades. For example the stealth based Brutalize skill can be upgraded to add an effect that causes nearby enemies to flee in terror once you’ve landed that savage blow. These upgrades will allow you to upgrade your Talion and Celebrimbor duality to its fullest extant and give your a multitude of new ways to dominate the battlefield.
Once you’re riding a drake, you can engage in the expected flaming of the landscape! You can also eat orcs to regain health as you devastate the landscape. Eventually you will be able to charge an explosive fireball for even more destruction. The bestiary is going to be fleshed out with even more variety than the first game and some of these will also be rideable beasts of destruction! In particular you will be able to commander siege beast from the opposition and use them to demolish your foes.
Everything about Shadow of War looks like an improvement over Shadow of Mordor and that’s saying a lot. It looks as if Monolith is taking everything that was great about the first and building upon it in all the right ways. This is a developer that is definitely not content to rest on their laurels and that’s evident in how Shadow of War is shaping up. If this game truly builds upon the series it will easily be a contender for game of the year. The only thing that can get in their way at this point is the becoming a victim of over-ambition and trying to do too much. We’ll be keeping a close, lidless, flaming eye on this one up to its August release.
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Emergence
Editor at Fextralife. I look for the substantial in gaming and I try to connect video games to the emotions and stories they elicit. I love all things culture and history and have an odd fondness for the planet Jupiter. I think my dogs are pretty awesome too.
The game to me is a must buy. The first game completely took me by surprise with how well polished it was and how few bugs there were in game.
It’s been a few years since the first games release and I have already revisited the first game to freshen up on the series.
One thing that I hope to be in the game is the ability to assassinate the leaders of these strong holds or simply convert them prior to invading the stronghold. I feel this will give players who prefer a more stealthy route and some interesting options instead of the whole, “ENOUGH TALK, WE BRING WAR!” direction.
When I say leaders, I mean the big boss, the head honcho of the stronghold.
The first one was like the child of Assassin’s Creed and Batman, the Nemesis system was fun and led to some really cool moments (and you could sacrifice yourself to power up an enemy, then kill them for better times).
There were a lot of bare open areas that you had to run through, which made the game feel like it was developed for last gen consoles, but it really did look and play great.
All in all, a great game, and I’m hoping the sequel will improve on things well, which it looks to be doing nicely so far.
this game makes me want to catch up with the previous one that I did not get to play because my souls addiction came in the way.I looks like you can be so powerful it might be totally exhilarating sometimes.
