Middle - Earth: Shadow Of War

There’s more to Talion’s return than playing capture the castle

Monolith’s latest assault on the Tolkien universe sees each Orc leader’s traits and foibles writ large in the fortresses that loom over every region of the world. Assign a member of the Feral tribe to run a captured keep, for example, and he might decorate the walls with butchered fire drakes, attracting beasts to the vicinity – a peculiarity you, as immortal ranger and latter day general Talion, might exploit to acquire a new mount. To date, press for the game has focused on the act of conquering (and defending) these structures, whereby you’ll pick your lieutenants, choose between such troop types as troll demolishers, venomous spiders and agile Caragor cavalry, then drive your foes back from control points to the innermost sanctum and a clash with the overlord. Shadow Of War’s evolution of its predecessor’s famous procedural Nemesis system isn’t, however, just a question of taking territory from realtime strategy. It bleeds down to every facet of the game, including the expanded loot mechanics.