PC version reviewed.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War is an action adventure game published by WB Games and developed by Monolith Productions for the Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC.
This review has spoilers!
GAMEPLAY
The forts are the highlight of the excellent improvements over the first game.
Sadly the online aspect is a bit squandered, especially at higher levels, where a lot of the fortresses have been hacked to house orcs that are over-levelled or have ridiculous amounts of immunities. Pile the hacking problems with bugs, such as your allied captains not actually showing up to the siege with you and it becomes clear that some updates are required for this part of the game.
The overhauled nemesis system is even more in depth than before. There are a bigger variety for orcs cheating death or gaining scars, betrayals bring about a new dynamic and can show you who your real allies are, having orc followers, being saved by an ally or orcs unexpectedly ambushing nemesis missions can change your approach or the outcome, there are plenty of new and expanded things that are great.
Orc characters fixed into the story going into the nemesis system after their major role finished was cool too, although not all of them do which is a shame.
The crates are a frustrating addition due to it being a single player game. I personally felt they were rather pointless as aside from the training orders you could get everything else without having to go through these boxes and it was far more fun to play the game and find orcs in the maps. Even if the inclusion is annoying, at least it is possible to open them without spending real money as you can earn the currency required through in-game challenges (As of July 2018 the micro-transactions have been removed from the game and you can just buy training orders instead with an easy to earn in-game currency).
I can understand why some people disliked the Shadow Wars of Act IV as perhaps they could have spread the fortress defences more so throughout the story, instead of having them all at the end, aside from just one in the previous three acts. However I thought the fortress defences were pretty fun and much more challenging than actually having to attack them (Again, as of July 2018 the Shadow Wars have been made much shorter and instead if you want to play more of the fort content you have the ability to play endless siege).
I disagree with people claiming you need the crates to complete it, there are numerous ways to level up orcs and if anything defending your fort with allies who have been at your side for a long time seems far more appealing to me than just pulling a few out of crates. One great example was a defence in which I wasn't doing great, an enemy captain was about to take Talion down and Skun the Bitter, one of my longest serving and best orcs, saved Talion and the fort along with him, only for me to realise after the battle that Skun had gone down. It was bittersweet, as the fort had withstood the attack, but one of my favourite orcs hadn't made it through.
It is possible to pull orcs from crates and create these dynamics with them but Skun had shown up far earlier for me in the pits, he was a higher level than Talion, had great stats and had been a pain for a while, having to avoid him, before I eventually managed to shame him with the help of other captains, and then managed to recruit him later on.
Gear has been completely overhauled and massively improved from the previous game where there were about six different weapons, two for each of the main ones, and the only way to really customise Talion was with skins. There are numerous sets to collect now to customise weapons and armour as well as some new weapons and abilities such as the glaive, throw-able hammer and being able to resurrect dead orcs.
Mounts and beasts have also seen a lot of positive changes. Caragors are much more effective with the longer reaching glaive to hit enemies with, graugs are still devastating but are now much more mobile, being able to scale things, sprint around as well as there are even elemental graugs with ranged attacks, whilst drakes are really fun to use and bring mayhem upon enemies as aerial support or even just to fly over mountains with the awesomely fun ability to ride them, not to mention stealthy players will probably enjoy using spiders to help them quietly pick off enemies.
Something I was critical on the first game on was, despite being set in Middle-earth they never really captured the grand, epic and wondrous feeling that it should do. It's one of the things the books and movies are so renowned for, and whilst this game did feel a bit better than the last in that regard, it still falls short of selling its backdrop of Middle-earth. The maps just don't generate the excitement they could and the world just doesn't feel that great outside of the orcs and nemesis system.
STORY
Bigger scale than the previous game but still not up to much. The best parts of the story are really with the orcs and the nemesis system instead.
Really messes around with some of the Middle-Earth lore. I shall go into spoilers here just to explain why so much of these changes are terrible. First of all, Shelob for some reason now has powers to rival the Witch-king or Sauron, such as randomly being able to abduct Celebrimbor with a shroud of smoke for no reason at all other then to bring her into the story, and more importantly she has visions of the future. In this future she sees Celebrimbor defeating Sauron and basically becoming as bad as him afterwards, so she helps divide Talion and Celebrimbor, leading to Celebrimbor not defeating Sauron, however she still wants Sauron to be defeated, just not have another like him to replace him.
The thing is, if she wanted Sauron to lose so badly too, which they hammer home in her flashback side quests, why does she then attack Frodo in the Lord of the Rings, almost giving the one ring to Sauron and ensuring that he would win? Not to mention Shelob is left alone in LotR because she prevents people from getting into Mordor, yet if she is as opposing of Sauron as she is in this game, why does Sauron leave her alone? Surely he wouldn't want her planning against him? It's a real mess.
That's not the only silly plot point though. The Ringwraiths have been messed around too, they explain that they pass on their rings, which is why some characters who don't line up with the timeline have actually become Nazgul. Silly and seemingly pointless, but that stuff is there to set up the worst part. Remember how it is explicitly stated in the lore of the LotR that the Ringwraiths were all kings of men? Well someone who is not a king of men ends up becoming a Nazgul by the end.
The first act is really poor and is basically a tutorial to the game without the actual main draw of the game in dominating orcs. You just spend two hours with a dire cast of characters being absolutely handheld and following the woeful story. Eventually once you get past it the real game begins and you begin dominating orcs, building an army and taking forts but I really do wonder what they were thinking with such a boring prolonged tutorial.
That's the end of my spoiler heavy rant about some of the messed up Middle-earth lore. It's not actually a huge deal since I doubt too many people came into the game expecting a masterclass in story telling, especially considering the previous game. It's just a shame that despite the numerous other improvements to the game this area still fell flat. The characters are still dull and boring too with little character depth, development or personality to them and the story really is clumsy.
GRAPHICS
They are fine but don't really feel like much of a progression from Shadow of Mordor.
SOUND
Out of all the people who could have voiced an orc I'm not sure why they got Kumail Nanjiani to voice one. I know it's supposed to funny but his voice doesn't suit an orc at all and sticks out like a sore thumb. Surely there were other names they could have got to do it who would have fit the role better.
Soundtrack itself is fine, but nothing special, like the first game. I feel both soundtracks are of the ilk where they're not bad but not too memorable either and mostly just serve to round off the experience instead of hugely enhancing it or anything. That said, the end credits song "Fires of War" was pretty cool.
VALUE FOR MONEY
OVERALL
A lacklustre story and a few more minor points drag the game down a little but in general the game still has much to offer. The overhauled nemesis system is a treat and there is a lot of fun to be had with new features such as the fortresses, drakes and additional abilities to create an interesting world to spend many hours in. Shadow of War might not be a perfect game but it sure is a fun one.
SLAUGHTER & OUTLAW TRIBE EXPANSIONS
THE BLADE OF GALADRIEL EXPANSION
THE DESOLATION OF MORDOR EXPANSION
