Middle-earth: Shadow of War

In this gameplay screenshot, protagonist Talion is exploring Seregost, one of the five open world regions in the game.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is an action-adventure game set in an open world and played from a third-person perspective. The player controls the game's protagonist, Talion, who has several athletic and combative abilities as a ranger of Gondor. The combat system in Shadow of War is similar to its predecessor. Talion can use his weapons to strike enemies and build up his "might" meter. Once Talion lands eight consecutive strikes, they can perform a combat finisher move, massively damaging an enemy's health.[1][2] When an enemy is about to strike Talion, a symbol will appear on top of their head, signaling the player to parry their attacks. Unblockable attacks are highlighted in red, and the player must try to dodge those attacks.[3] In addition to melee combat, players can also utilize stealth tactics when approaching their targets.[4] Talion also has unique abilities provided by the wraith of the elf lord Celebrimbor, with whom he shares his body. Through Celebrimbor, Talion can perform magical feats such as double-jumping, activating wraith vision to highlight nearby enemies, shooting spirit arrows, wielding a spectral glaive, draining an enemy's health, or dominating them. Players must use their combined abilities to complete various missions, typically aimed to disrupt the armies of Sauron. As players progress in the game and complete story quests, they will gradually gain points to unlock new skills and abilities. Each skill can be individually upgraded to provide more gameplay perks and bonuses.[5]

The game features a currency called "mirian", which is earned by defeating enemies. Mirian can be used to purchase weaponry and other gear, as well as followers, in the game's market.[6] Talion has access to five different types of gear in his inventory: a sword, a dagger, a bow, armor, and a cloak. The effectiveness of a particular piece of gear is dictated by both its stat and its rarity, which is categorized into: common, rare, epic, and legendary. Players can spend the mirian and finish "unlock challenges" in order to upgrade their weapons. In addition, gems can be slotted into Talion's gear. They can be used to either increase weapon's damage, Talion's health, or the amount of mirian Talion will gain through defeating enemies or completing quests. Several lower-quality gems can be combined into a gem of the next-higher quality. As players progress in the game, they will collect legendary gear. When multiple legendary gear of the same set are collected, combat bonuses will be granted to players.[7]

Shadow of War is made up of five different areas, which Talion can freely explored by players on foot or while riding tamed beasts.[8][9] There are side activities that Talion can participate in, such as purifying Haedir towers, which unlocks a fast travel point for players and reveals locations of interest to players,[6] He can also find lost Gondorian artifacts, solve puzzles to unlock "ithildin doors", collect Shelob's memories, and complete "Shadows of the Past" quests, which are challenges based on Celebrimbor's memories.[10] Each of four of the five regions has a fortress operated by an overlord. Players must lay siege to these fortresses, and maintain control after capturing them. Each fortress has a "fortress level", which indicates how strong the warchiefs stationed inside the fortress are and how well fortified a fortress is. Players can send in their own followers to capture the fortress, and the combined strengths of their followers are reflected by the player's own "assault force level". If the fortress level and assault force level are similar, both sides would be even in strength, resulting in an even fight. After a fortress invasion has started, Talion and his followers must capture victory points, and kill the overlord in the throne room. Players can then appoint one of their followers to become the new overlord of the fortress, and improve their fortress with siege upgrades. Defense missions become available following a successful fortress conquest.[11] After completing the game's main campaign, players can complete endgame content known as "Shadow Wars" (renamed to "Epilogue" in July 2018), in which players must defend their fortresses against hostile enemies 20 times before unlocking the game's bonus ending.[12]

Troy Baker provided the voice for Talion, the game's protagonist. He also served as the game's motion capture director.

Shadow of War continues the narrative from Shadow of Mordor, following undead ranger Talion (Troy Baker) who is still infused with the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor (Alastair Duncan). Talion and Celebrimbor travel to Mount Doom, where they forge a new Ring of Power that is free of Sauron's corruption. However, once the Ring is forged, Celebrimbor is abducted and held hostage by Shelob (Pollyanna McIntosh), who asks Talion to hand over the Ring in exchange for Celebrimbor. Talion reluctantly agrees and gives the Ring to Shelob, who claims they have a common enemy in Sauron. She uses the Ring to see into the future and directs Talion to the last Gondorian stronghold near Mordor, Minas Ithil. The city is under siege by Sauron's forces, due to the city's possession of a valuable Palantír that allows whoever possesses it to see anything they wish, making it either a valuable tool for Celebrimbor or a powerful weapon for Sauron.

Talion travels to Minas Ithil and is at odds with Celebrimbor. Talion wants to help his fellow Gondorians, while Celebrimbor believes the city is already lost and the retrieval of the Palantír must take priority. Talion reasons that protecting Minas Ithil will protect the Palantír, and he meets up with the city's defenders: General Castamir (Travis Willingham), his daughter Idril (Nicole Tompkins), and his lieutenant Baranor (Ike Amadi). Together, they sabotage any efforts by Sauron's forces to break into the city, until Castamir betrays them, allowing the orcs to breach the gates, and hands over the Palantír to the Witch-king of Angmar (Matt Mercer) in return for sparing Idril. Castamir is killed by the Witch-king and Talion is barely able to escape with the help of Eltariel (Laura Bailey), an Elven assassin working on behalf of Galadriel (Jennifer Hale). The Witch-king, having seized Minas Ithil, renames it Minas Morgul. With the Palantír, Sauron realizes that Shelob is holding Celebrimbor's Ring and sends the Nazgûl to attack her. Talion is able to save Shelob, who returns the Ring to him and tells him that the fate of Middle-earth is in his hands.

With the Ring back in his possession, Talion begins to use its power to dominate orcs and build his army. During this time, he assists Idril and Baranor in rescuing Gondorian survivors, helps the nature spirit Carnan (Toks Olagundoye) defeat the Balrog Tar Goroth and the necromancer Zog (Nolan North), is betrayed by one of his followers, and hunts the Nazgûl alongside Eltariel. Talion builds up enough strength to assault Sauron's fortress directly. During the battle, Talion faces Isildur (Nolan North), who has been corrupted into a Nazgûl. Talion manages to defeat Isildur, but upon seeing his memories of how he was corrupted by the One Ring, decides to destroy Isildur and release his spirit rather than dominate him. Celebrimbor remarks angrily that Isildur would have been a valuable asset to their cause, leading Talion to realize that Celebrimbor wishes to replace Sauron by dominating him rather than destroying him. Talion refuses to follow Celebrimbor's orders any more, causing the wraith to abandon him and possess Eltariel instead.

Without Celebrimbor or the Ring, Talion begins to die before seeing a vision of Shelob. She informs him that if he had gone on to fight Sauron, they would have succeeded and Celebrimbor would have enslaved Sauron and marched on the rest of Middle-earth. She implores Talion to continue to fight to contain the darkness within Mordor. Deciding to put his fate in his own hands, Talion picks up the ring Isildur was wearing to preserve his own life. He uses the power of Isildur's Ring to assault and seize Minas Morgul, defeating the Witch-king in the process. Talion takes possession of the Palantír and observes Celebrimbor and Eltariel making their assault on Sauron. The latter two manage to gain the upper hand and Celebrimbor attempts to dominate Sauron, only for Sauron to cut off two of Eltariel's fingers, one of which is adorned with the Ring of Power, and merge himself with Celebrimbor. As a result, Sauron and Celebrimbor remain trapped in Sauron's tower in the form of a flaming eye as their spirits continue to battle each other for dominance. Knowing he will not be able to resist the Ring, Talion decides to use Minas Morgul as a fortress to keep Sauron's forces contained in Mordor as long as he can.

Decades later, Talion succumbs to the corruption of Isildur's Ring, and joins Sauron's forces as a Nazgûl, where he goes with the others to hunt Frodo and the One Ring. However, with the destruction of Sauron and the One Ring, Talion dies with the rest of the Nazgûl, and his spirit is freed. He is last seen on the shores of Valinor discarding his weapons and armor as he walks off into the west.

After the success of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Monolith Productions returned to lead the development of the sequel.[25] Creative director Michael De Plater said that the development of Shadow of Mordor was a learning study for Monolith in how to make open world games, and the development team limited themselves in the scope of what they could deliver for that game. With those lessons learned, de Plater said that Monolith was able to take a bolder step forward for Shadow of War, saying "[t]his was our ambition to do the big, blockbuster version of the ideas we'd begun to explore in the first game. It's kind of our Terminator 2 to Terminator."[26] Monolith upgraded their game engine, named LithTech, from Shadow of Mordor, to the Firebird engine, which can support large-scale battles and more complex features in the nemesis system.[27]

The team wanted the game's story to "evoke some of the most iconic and epic elements" in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. They created battle systems that enable large-scale battles where parts of the battle would be managed by the various Followers that the player has recruited, thus allowing the player to still focus on the violence and brutality of close-quarter combat.[26] In addition, the team would weave these moments into the story of the game, and provide context for the nemesis system, whose ultimate goal was to facilitate Talion's complete conquest of Mordor. Explaining why the story deviated from the Lords of the Ring canon, de Plater described the story as an "adaptation" of the books. While the team wanted to capture the spirit of Middle-earth as much as possible, the team created an original story that explores "the darker side of Tolkien's works".[25] As the game takes place in the decades between the end of The Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring, the team believed that they could fill in some missing details without impacting the wider story depicted in Tolkien's novels, as this period was relatively less explored in fiction.[28] The team further compared the game to the Star Wars movie Rogue One, whereby the story of Shadow of War would lead into the events of The Lord of the Rings.[29] The story was also designed to be accessible, and players need not play Shadow of Mordor or understand any of the Tolkien's work before playing Shadow of War.[29] The "Shadow Wars" endgame mode was created with the intention of giving players more reasons to continue playing the game and explore the nemesis system after they complete the main story. The team expected only a small percentage of players to unlock this final ending.[25]

Talion returned as the game's central protagonist. The game's narrative follows a three-act structure, and provides a definitive ending to Talion's story that begins in Shadow of Mordor.[30][31] According to de Plater, while Talion inherited the heroic traits of Boromir, he is ultimately an everyman like Samwise Gamgee.[32] Troy Baker returned to provide voice for Talion, while also serving as the motion capture director for all story sequences in the game. Baker drew from his experience working with Naughty Dog on The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End while working on the project, while working closely with the game's writers and cutscenes directors.[33] In addition to Baker, Alastair Duncan returned to voice Celebrimbor.[34] In the game, Celebrimbor is an ambitious "figure of power", one who believes that he can be better than Sauron, once he takes the ring.[32] The team wanted to take players to areas outside of Mordor and have Talion meet other new characters. New members of the cast include Laura Bailey, who played the role of Eltariel, an elven assassin working for Galadriel who fights to keep the Nazgûl within Mordor.[35] Pollyanna McIntosh voiced Shelob, a spider who can shapeshift into a human woman in the game.[36] While this decision was initially met with a backlash from fans of the series as Shelob is not a woman in the books, writer Tony Elias added that they could explore the character in a much more in-depth manner when she was in her human form, or they would have to dramatically reduce her role in the game.[37]

Volcanoes in eastern Washington were one of the inspirations for the locations in the game.

The team tried to devote resources to new regions as much as possible.[25] The locations in the game were inspired by the landscapes of eastern Washington, Alaska, and Iceland.[38] De Plater added that each region in the game was larger in size when compared to that of Shadow of Mordor, and was more environmentally diverse.[31] The five regions were also designed to be more colorful, contrasting with the gritty artstyle of Shadow of Mordor.[39] The human city of Minas Ithil was designed as the first location that Talion will visit. The team took inspiration from Minas Tirith, from the films, and Roman architecture, while designing the look of the city. They also consulted illustrator and architect Ted Nasmith.[40] The team also planned for the city to be attacked and captured by Nazgûl, becoming the fallen city of Minas Morgul.[31] Seregost was a snowy location that had changes in elevation not previously seen in its predecessor. Cirith Ungol was a massive cave complex where remnants of an ancient civilization can be found. Núrn returned in Shadow of War as a tropical island. Through Núrn, the team wanted to explore the theme of nature destruction, as orcs are destroying its lush forest to provide supplies for their war effort. Gorgoroth was described as a "hellscape", and "the culmination of all of these iconic locations and structures that everybody knows and loves from the lore made real". Gorgoroth was heavily industrialized, as the team wanted to show how the orcs are preparing for war by building different engines of war and factories.[41] The nemesis system also influences the world itself, with each environment changing depending on the tribe of the orc overlord controlling each fortress.[38]

Shadow of War was officially announced by Monolith Productions and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in March 2017.[47] The title was originally scheduled to be released in August 2017, but in June of that year, the publisher announced that the release would be put off for two months, to make sure the game meets "the highest quality experience" for players.[48] The game was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on October 10, 2017.[49] A free-to-play companion game for iOS and Android devices was also released on September 28, 2017, ahead of the console/PC versions.[50] Developed by IUGO Mobile Entertainment, mobile companion versions of Shadow of War are played as a real-time strategy role-playing video game from a top-down perspective, where players can recruit characters from the console/PC versions of the game and other characters from its predecessor and The Lord of the Rings film trilogy to fight Sauron's forces in small-scale battles.[51]

On March 3, 2016, Monolith's executive producer, Michael David Forgey, died of cancer. To commemorate the loss of Shadow of War's executive producer, Monolith, and Warner Bros. announced a downloadable content (DLC) named "Forthog Orc-Slayer". Originally selling for $5, Warner Bros. promised to donate $3.50 of the proceeds from each sale of the DLC made from any of the majority of the U.S. states[52] to the Forgey family through December 31, 2019.[53] Warner Bros. was criticized for attempting to cash in on Forgey's death.[54] Following a public backlash, on September 27, 2017, the DLC was made free to all who purchased the game and all proceeds were refunded to those who purchased it beforehand, in favor of Warner Bros. making a lump sum donation to the Forgey family.[55]

The game was released alongside an expansion pass, which grants players access to several pieces of downloadable content. Slaughter Tribe Nemesis and The Outlaw Tribe Nemesis were released in November and December 2017, respectively, introducing new orc tribes and gear. In February 2018, Blade of Galadriel, a story expansion was released. In this expansion, players would assume control of Eltariel as she fights to uncover the mystery behind the Nazgûl. In May 2018, Monolith released an expansion named Desolation of Mordor. Players assume control of Baranor, the Captain of Minas Ithil, who must work with his allies to fight against a new orc threat to the east.[56] Several free updates have been released, introducing content such as infinite Shadow War and Online Fight Pits.[57] In April 2018, Monolith announced that they would gradually remove all forms of microtransactions and the marketplace from the game, citing that they "compromise" the game by undermining the nemesis system, as such transactions provide players a fast shortcut to build their army.[58] Following the change, WB Games bundled all expansion pass content with the base game, releasing it as the "Definitive Edition" in August 2018.[59] A demo for the game, which allows players to complete all missions in the Núrn region, was also released for Steam users in August 2018.[60]

Middle-earth: Shadow of War received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[63][62][61] Many critics noted the game's ambitious scope and its significant expansion of the nemesis system, but criticized the game's story and bloated size.[71] The introduction of microtransactions and lootboxes (war chests) were widely criticized by critics.[66][70][69] Commercially, Shadow of War was the best-selling video game in the US in October 2017, with sales being 20% higher than its predecessor.[72] In the UK, it was the second best-selling video game in its week of release, behind FIFA 18.[73]

The nemesis system was often singled out as the highlight of the game. Matt Miller from Game Informer described Shadow of War as "a playground of intense and emergent action scenes" shaped by player's choices. He was impressed by the variety of orcs he encountered in the game, and wrote that interacting with them through the game's nemesis missions helped deepen players' engagement with the game's world.[65] Hurley also enjoyed the nemesis system for creating personalized stories on top of the main narrative, noting that each encounter with an orc may potentially develop into a unique story depending on players' decisions.[67] Stapleton praised how the nemesis system generated numerous colorful characters and adversaries, with each having their own voice and appearance. He further applauded the system for introducing a layer of surprise and unpredictability to the game.[68] PC Gamer's Andy Kelly described the nemesis system as the "best part" of Shadow of War. The tribal systems was singled out for producing orcs that feel like "distinct, original characters, therefore, making the relationships forged with them more "personal".[69] Christian Donlan from Eurogamer praised the nemesis system for making the game's world feel "wonderfully, comically, teeteringly alive".[74] However, several critics questioned the morality behind building an orc army by essentially brainwashing and enslaving them.[75][76][77]

The combat of the game received critical acclaim. Matt Miller from Game Informer praised the diverse combat skills, which provided a "potent power fantasy". He also enjoyed the progression system, which kept the gameplay experience fresh despite the game's long length.[65] Leon Hurley, writing for GamesRadar, also enjoyed the upgrade system for significantly deepening the "simple" yet "effective" counter-based combat system. He remarked that each combat scenario could be different due to the unique traits of each orc, forcing players to improvise and adapt.[67] Dan Stapleton from IGN praised Talion's agility, calling the transversal options "quick and fun". Fortress assault was praised by critics for being epic in scale,[66] though Stapleton was disappointed by the lack of planning and strategy involved.[68] Johnny Chiodini from Eurogamer wrote that the game often overwhelmed players with upgrade points and skills, causing the gameplay experience to be relatively easy. As a result, this undermined the nemesis system, as he had never encountered a "nemesis" character that caused him significant trouble or could repeatedly kill his Talion.[78]

The story of the game received generally negative reviews. Hurley remarked that the game's tone was incoherent and felt the story did not respect the source material, citing Shelob's change from a spider to a human woman as one of his disappointments with the game's narrative.[67] Stapleton added that the game played "fast and loose" with Lord of the Ring lore, while criticizing the game's dialog as "clunky" and "derivative".[68] Kelly also disliked the game's tone, feeling that it was "overly-serious" and lacked a sense of playfulness.[69] Johnny Chiodini from Eurogamer also called the story "dreadful", "self-indulgent", and "bombastic nonsense". He suspected Monolith only added certain plot points "for the sake of doing things bigger for the sequel", and wrote that "the lore had been thrown out the window for the sake of a couple of schlocky and unnecessary reveals".[78] Chris Carter from Destructoid disliked Talion, calling him "bland", and remarked that the story was "nonsensical", with "rings upon rings and comical retcons".[64] Phillip Kollar from Polygon remarked that fans of the Tolkien's legendarium will likely find Shadow of War's story and twists to the existing canon "distasteful".[70] Writing for GameSpot, Justin Haywald liked the stories featuring the game's side characters and orc companions, but lamented that players did not get to spend enough time with them and that these quests end abruptly.[66]

Critics had mixed feelings about the scale of the game. While some reviewers noted the distinctiveness of the game's five regions, they also noted their lack of new enemy types or gameplay.[65][68] While Miller praised the location design and described the locations as a "visual treat",[65] Kelly criticized the uninspiring environment design and the game's "sludgy, muted look".[69] Kelly felt that despite the abundance of systems in the game, many were not integrated properly. Elaborating on the game's bloatedness, Kelly added that the game was "constantly screaming at [players] to do things", and described its side content as a "fantasy to-do list".[69] Carter, likewise, felt that some of the systems, such as the gear featured in the game, were overly convoluted.[64] Andrew Webster, writing for The Verge, added that Monolith's intention to introduce more content to the game unexpectedly backfired and diluted the experience, causing great moments in the game to be overshadowed by unnecessary content, boring missions, and map markers that failed to elevate the experience.[77]

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