*No Spoilers*

You might have heard that the sequel to Monolith’s 2014 masterpiece; Shadow of Mordor, has gotten a lot of stick during its creation for the implementation of loot-crates and real-world money being used to buy better things for the game, effectively paying to win. Well I would like to set the record straight and say that this does not affect the game at all. You can play through the game and not even touch the Marketplace option on the menu (which is where the loot-crates can be found), or you can go in there and use the in-game currency to purchase lesser quality gear as and when. That should keep you in enough orcs to fill those little gaps in your army (which I will get into later on in the review).


Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. If it wasn’t the loot-crates that got you riled up, then it would be the fact that the graphics have not much changed since 2014. Having recently played 2016’s Uncharted 4 on PS4, the switch between in-game cut-scene and a really well done CGI cut-scene is seamless (and the game was released over a year ago). What I mean by that is that in Uncharted 4, you cannot tell the difference in terms of graphics. The in-game looks just as good as the cut-scenes and visa-versa and the transition between the two is not noticeable. However, in Shadow of War, the opening cut-scene’s graphics is something reminiscent of a Ubisoft game trailer, and we all know that Ubisoft trailers are to be taken with a pinch of salt when compared to the actual game itself. When the gameplay cuts in and we see the main character speak, we feel as if we are still playing the 2014 original. It is dramatically different and this is coming from ME. I claim to be one of these people who say that the graphics do not matter, as long as the gameplay is good (which it is and I’ll get to in a minute), so if I noticed the graphics, then it must be noticeable.
Having said that, eventually it grows on you and you do not even notice the slightly lower quality in graphics, especially due to the fact that the opening trailer and the ending, are the only scenes that have this top-notch level of graphical detail added.

One last thing I would like to point out, before I get into the good stuff, is that the final chapter of the game (without spoilers), which is kind of an epilogue after you have finished the game, requires you to grind and grind and grind. You are charged with defending the fortresses you have acquired throughout the game, but after the initial first few, you will need to go out and gain more high level orcs to defend your fortress, which requires you to level up in order to dominate the higher levelled orcs, as well as more money to pay for the upgrades. All of which is to allow you to see the “True Ending” of the game. This grind, while good in the sense that it allows you to continue playing the game after you have finished it, would take probably the length of the entire game once more in order to achieve. So naturally I was put off and just ended up watching this ending on YouTube (which does make me wonder if this is the end of the series or not, as this ending does not leave it very much open for another).

So, as much as the game seemed like it was desperately trying to make me not like it and put me off, I actually really enjoyed it. It is clear that Shadow of War has been churned through the video game money making machine, and perhaps it is not the perfect game, but it is a great example of how solid game mechanics and enjoyable gameplay can carry a game across a river of turds.

If you did not remember anything from the original, then fear not, as the core of the game remains the same. The story picks up exactly where the previous one left off, and if you are familiar with the Lord of the Rings films or books, then you should be okay with getting caught up to speed.
Talion, former Gondorian soldier turned semi-ringwraith by the guy who actually forged the one ring, has constructed a new ring of power and is planning to use it to overthrow the armies of Mordor, conquer their fortresses, and lead this newly acquired orc force to defeat Sauron and save the day, all the while having help from his ghost friend who gives Talion all of his powers and so Talion would be fucking useless without him.
That is the basic outline of the entire game and it remains unchanged throughout. In order to reach the actual army building segment of it, we do need to complete the opening act, which plays basically the same as the original game.
In this act, Talion is looking for something called the Palantir, and keep constantly going on about it. I had no idea what the hell a Palantir was, so unless you are clued up on your LotR lore, then you will find yourself scratching your head. It is not until you actually see what the Palantir is that you go “Oh yeah… I remember that from the film”.


The gameplay at this point is just as good, if not unchanged, from the first game. You climb, jump about (all of which is aided by your ghost friend) and fight orcs. The first area of the game is just as large as the other 4 areas and it gives you a taste of ever thing that the game has to offer. There are collectables straight out of Assassin’s Creed where if you get them all (only this time you need to solve a little word puzzle in order to gain access to it, which is quite cool), you unlock the piece of armour for this region, there are general collectables, fighting pits (not for you though, but for the orcs you eventually dominate/take control of), backstory missions for the ghost character, and of course there is the hierarchy of orcs that you can defeat in order to clear the map of them, but, if you have played the original, then you don’t really want to do this as you want to dominate them and have them under your flag, when you eventually gain the ability at the start of act 2.
Act 1 is all about the story. It builds up a few of the NPCs as well as the overall story, which remains unchanged until the final mission of the game. It is not until we reach Act 2, and find ourselves on an entirely new section of the map, that the game mixes it up a bit.

Here you have one main orc fortress (and all of this is the same for every map) which will have an Orc Overlord at the top of the food chain, followed by his captains (which can change in number depending on how high a level the Overlord is), and then you have the twenty or so orcs that form the army. You objective is to take it over. In order to do this, you need to either find the orcs on the map, or complete a little randomised mission in order to face him. You can either choose to dominate him, if you are the same level or higher, shame him to bring his level down and face him another day, or simply kill him. Dead orcs can be replaced with your own agents (obtained through the infamous loot crates). These you can send to take down over orcs in the army, proving themselves in the fighting pits to become a captain or a bodyguard for a captain, or abusing another orc captain, each of which create new missions and give you opportunities to kill or dominate the enemy.
Over the course of the map there are ‘worms’ who can be dominated and interrogated for information on the orcs, such as weaknesses and a list of their fears. Anyone who has played Shadow of Mordor knows that this is the best way to bring down your opponent, and there is nothing more satisfying that planning a mission and utilising your knowledge of your enemy to defeat them. It is just as good in this game.
My personal favourite is taking control of the bodyguards of a captain and using them to create a Betrayal mission, whereby the bodyguards lure the captain out into the open for you. I managed to do this to all the captains in one area, dominating them, to the point where I had taken control of the entire army without the Overlord knowing. Having dominated captains in an orc overlord controlled area is very important for the siege missions.
These missions are the main objective of the game. There are 5 areas in total, but only 1 of them can be accessed in the story, so technically there are only 4 fortresses to conquer. Each area has its own Overlord and hierarchy of orcs to take over.

The siege missions are available from once you have taken over one orc in that area’s army. As they will serve as your assault commander. The higher level they are, the better your assault force is, and the higher level you are, the more assault commanders you can have. You can purchase an upgrade for each of them and their combined power is your assault force number. Naturally this number needs to beat the defence of the Overlord’s fortress.
You can kill all the enemy captains before hand and make the fortress weakened, OR you can be clever and dominate these captains, creating spies inside which will bring down the base from within when you launch you assault.


These missions are epic and there are a lot of orcs, both good and bad, on screen battling it out, including the massive Ologs (trolls), Rancour-esc monsters (known as Graugs), Caragors and mother fucking Drakes (dragons! And all of these creatures are ridable if you have the skills unlocked), which can become quite chaotic but incredibly immense. If you have captains inside then these will bring down the walls and help you capture the objectives. Capturing objectives is just holding an area inside the fort until the timer runs out before moving onto the next.
Once all of the objective areas are captured, you move inside to face the Overlord… ALONE (unless you have an orc set as your bodyguard, and/or have a creature which you can summon for help). The Overlord battles are not as epic as some of the boss battles in the game. These are mainly just powerful high level orcs that you must face along with a load of minions, but the battles themselves are just as enjoyable as facing any other captain the game.

Once you have defeated them (you can dominate them as well if you like), then you will have captured the fortress and it is now yours. You can set a defence force, similar to how you did the assault, and this is for the final section of the game (mention way in the beginning of the review when the game requires you to grind and hold your fortresses against a constant force of enemy soldiers) as well as online conquests. These are just missions whereby you can enter another player’s game see if you can defeat their fortress. You do not actually conquer it, nor kill another player’s orcs, it is more like a simulation, but still quite fun if you have captured all the fortresses and want to have another epic siege mission where you are NOT on the defending side.
One thing I do like is that you can lose these fortress in the final section of the game and have to recapture it. However, if you have lost it, then all of the orcs that you put into place are most likely dead and you will need to start from scratch.

There are actual story missions in the game, but these do feel at times like side missions. All you really need to do to complete this game is capture all of the fortresses and do the final mission, but there are another 5 quest-lines that you can complete before you do this (as the game encourages you to have these done before you attempt the final mission, due to the fact that although you can replay after the final mission has been completed, something has changed – that I won’t say – and I believe that these missions become locked at this point in the game).
These quest-lines remind me of the Batman Arkham games. They have a percentage for each of them and some are longer and more important than others. Each of them are enjoyable, whether you are hunting Ringwraiths, knocking about with Bruz, or helping the Gondorian armies of man, each of them add their own to the game.
Occasionally missions in the middle of these quest-lines do seem a little like filler, but overall these are worth doing before the final mission.

One thing I have yet to mention is that if you die in Shadow of War, like the previous game, the orc who killed you will become promoted, level up, and otherwise become very cocky at the fact he killed you. He might even get a new title. This is all randomised of course, as well as any new orcs that enter the game either through loot-crates, or just ones you meet serving as minions who might bring you down. This randomisation allows you to create some real personal memories that will be great to discuss with your friends, who in-turn will have completely different experiences to you.
Sometimes enemies might come back from the dead, or something else entirely, which really do add a whole new enjoyable factor to the game. I know the last game had it as well, but it is fresh in my mind still so it is worth playing.
I had one orc kill me, giving me a vendetta mission (which is one where you can hunt them down), of which I failed and died again, making this orc incredibly powerful in the army. He then ambushed me out of the blue (which is brilliant when it happens as you have no idea an ambush is about to happen until they announce themselves and get a little randomise introduction), but thankfully I managed to kill him.
He then ambushed me once again, only this time it was clear he had been reconstructed with metal holding together the severed limbs I had cut off previous. He mentioned how he was rebuilt by his comrades and now seeks revenge, after which I put him down for good. When he had returned, he had a brand new titles (something like “the reborn” as oppose to his previous title “the Enslaver”) which just gave the whole encounter a nice touch.
That whole experience was completely random and, although other players might have had a similar experience, mine would have been completely different to any body else’s, and to that, I have to commend Monolith, even if I had already commended them already when they did this in the previous game… but perhaps there are more chances for these random situations to occur in the sequel.


The vendetta missions can also be accessed by other players online, so say a friend of mine was killed by a orc captain, I can enter his world (kind of) and defeat this captain. He will then appear dead on the other player’s army list, and we are both given bonuses for completing the mission. This is great as it does create some more amusing water cooler conversations, as well as bragging rights. You can’t, however, dominate the orc and have him enter your world… that would just be silly. I guess.

One last thing that does annoy me is that the random missions that are created, such as an orc ambushing another, or an orc proving himself in the fighting pits to become a bodyguard, appear on the map randomly and have three timeslots before the mission is completed. These happen for both orcs you control and orcs you don’t. The time slots deplete once you have done another mission (maybe on a completely different map), and if the mission is resolved without you actually resolving it yourself, sometimes this can have a negative factor on your army, such as killing the orc and replacing them with someone else who is not under your control. Therefore you can spend ages taking over an entire army, go to a new area and start working there, only for the first area’s army to suddenly have a few random unknown enemy orcs that have wormed their way in and killed your guys. There is not enough time for you to go to every single one of these missions before they disappear, so naturally you are going to have some randoms pop up every now and again, which can be quite annoying considering you spent ages taking over the entire army in this region.
Of course this isn’t always the case as your orc might win the mission and therefore will only just go up in level, helping your army out, but it is still annoying that these timed missions can affect you if you leave them long enough to do so. I imagine this was implemented to create the longevity of the game long after you have finished the final mission.

Before I round this up, I would like to say that the skills in Shadow of War do change the game dramatically. You can really utilise them to your play style and going back and replaying the game, I would be lost without them. You do find yourself, about halfway through the game, having all the skills you need and just spending them on pointless stuff that sound cool but you will never use, but the ones you did unlock and utilise really do help you out massively.

Overall, despite the game throwing in a lot of bad factors, Shadow of War is carried by its core mechanic. The solid gameplay and random nature of orcs create some memorable experience. While not overly much is change from the original, what is new, such as siege missions, are brilliantly implemented and a fantastic addition to the games formula.
I do question the next step for the game, especially given the “True Ending”, but I am sure Monolith will pull something out of the bag for next time. My only fear is the dark path that they are heading down. I feel Monolith have become corrupted by the Dark Lord of video game money making in a similar fashion to Activation and EA that I hope they can see the error of their ways and turn back onto the path of good and just, or else this franchise might be doom…

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