Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor turned heads for its unique nemesis system and fun action combat when it launched in 2014. It went on to find a place on many game of the year lists, including winning Game Informer’s best action game for that year.
Last week, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Monolith Productions finally unveiled a sequel, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, which picks up right where the last game left off. The Dark Lord Sauron’s power has only grown, since he’s gathered his army. Back in the shoes of Talion and Celebrimbor, can you rise up and turn all of Mordor against him?
Shadow of War isn’t a distant release, with its launch on August 22. Today marks the first slice of substantial gameplay we’ve seen and it already looks like Monolith is improving on the foundation set by its predecessor by enhancing the nemesis system and setting a more epic scale for battles. At this year's GDC, we saw the game in action and interviewed Monolith VP of creative Michael de Plater to find out what’s in store. Here are our biggest takeaways.
The Nemesis System Is More Complex
The nemesis system was Shadow of Mordor’s biggest draw. It reacted to your actions in the world by altering your missions and conflicts based on previous encounters. This meant no two players ever had the same exact experience in the game, as enemies and battle conditions varied by gameplay choices. Shadow of War is greatly expanding on this, offering more memorable exchanges on the battlefield. “We’ve expanded the amount of A.I. and history and memories and stories that we’re tracking in the nemesis system,” says Monolith VP of creative Michael de Plater.
Just as before, your foes taunt you and profess what you’ve done that’s angered them, trying to get under your skin. For Shadow of War, de Plater uses an example of an orc who just loves to take your sword and snap it in half right in front of your face when he defeats you. We get a taste of these tense face-to-faces when we meet our first big foe in our demo. The mission is to gain control of a region by taking down a fortress called the Mountain Valley of Seregost. To do this, we must face off against Thrak: The Storm-Bringer, and our history with him isn’t great. We left him to die, and he took revenge by joining up with the Dark Lord. He shouts, “Come charge into the flames of your reckoning!”
What’s different this time is that your followers get more involved in the action, having their own special moments to shine in battle. Many times during the demo, we have close calls where we are just about to meet our end, but just in the nick of time, one of our followers comes in with a life-saving action. In one instance, Thrak sneaks up on us and throws us to the ground. As he’s about to slice us to death, one of our allies comes to the rescue, sniping from afar and blasting his hand off. Being rescued just makes your appreciate your comrades all the more, especially when it saves you from a game over screen.
Creating stories of betrayal, rivalry, or friendship with your followers is a big part of the experience this time around. “When they’re your enemies, we want you to love to hate them,” de Plater says. “And when they’re your followers, you hate to love them. Because they’re orcs. They’re always driven by violence and hatred and fear of their master, so it’s always this very violent society that you’re messing with.”
In addition to your personal bonds, the orcs also have their own friendships and histories with one another. “Individual orcs can have rivalries with each other, or be blood brothers with each other, or have these personal relationships with each other, which will then feed into what they remember, how they react, or if they’ll follow or betray you,” de Plater explains.
More Options For Building Your Army
Building up your own army was fun in the first game, but Shadow of War provides even more options. You take over regions with your followers in tow, but you have even more classes and skills to craft a strategy around in Shadow of War. For instance, when infiltrating Seregost, we have followers that can get us through an array of challenges. Ragdug, an iron mount, gives us access to his armored cavalry, allowing us to charge through flames of artillery fire. Another member we select for the mission is Ar-Laar: The Demolisher, who is a living battering ram, tearing down enemy defenses with ease.
Once you take over a region, you can select an overlord from your followers to rule it. Orcs now belong to different tribes, so depending on who you pick and what tribe they belong to, the region will reflect their tendencies and values. “What’s really fun and different is whoever is in control of that fortress – if it’s the mystic fortress or feral fortress – that influence and that culture actually spreads right throughout the region,” de Plater says. For instance, if you select a beast master as your overlord, you will have more creatures roaming around, and since he’s from a feral tribe, expect your followers to go on more hunting missions. If you select a leader who is from a more industrial tribe, you have more slaves working for you with a focus on mining. In our demo, we give the overlord honors to Ragdug, as he helped us out of a near-death experience. The bonus with promoting him is that, as a marauder, he’s more likely to loot and pillage the region for us.
You can also upgrade your fortresses along the way, improving defenses and power to withstand Sauron’s counterattacks. You can command the fortress staff at any time, sending them on missions to either attack enemy bases or gather resources. You can choose to accompany them or just let handle these missions on their own. In addition, you can also can assign bodyguards and summon them to help you at anytime.
Click to the next page to learn about mounts, the expanded gear system, and the fun lore surprises...
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