In 2006 I watched LOTR trilogy for the first time, I had no prior knowledge of the books but ever since I fell in love with Middle-Earth. A year later I got my first DVD player alongside the trilogy and used to watch them almost daily during summer.
Over the next few years, I tried to play every LOTR game I can get my hands on; the PS2 era games; The Two Towers, Return of the King and The Third Age. The PC games; The Battle for Middle-Earth I, II and The Rise of the Witch King.
In 2020 I read the books and when Amazon’s Rings of Power started streaming it gave me an excuse to renew my Prime account. To put it simply, I consumed so much of Tolkien’s materials, some were better than others, still I enjoyed every one of them.
Shadow of Mordor came during a difficult time in my life, and I simply never got the chance to play it. Shadow of War came out in a busy year of games, so I skipped it on release. I decided to give the series a try on my Steam Deck OLED and to revisit one of my all-time favorite worlds; Middle-Earth.
Worldbuilding
Story and Characters
Shadow of War opens with a brief summary telling the story of its predecessor. You play as Talion; a ranger of the Black Gate who alongside his wife and son were murdered by Sauron’s deadliest captain; The Black Hand. In death, Talion is saved and joined by a wraith; Celebrimbor, who was once a great smith-elf known for forging the three rings of power.
Alright, so that was Shadow of Mordor’s story, what about War’s story? Well, Talion and Celebrimbor forge a new ring of power, only to lose it shortly after to Shelob; the giant spider who is now a seductive mistress. Sauron is back, his armies are besieging the fortress of Minas Ithil. Talion wants to help the defenders protect the fortress and repel the attackers while Celebrimbor is focused on saving the Palantir, a magical crystal ball, from the dark lord’s grasp.
Conflict among allies can be a great narrative device within a story when used correctly. A superficial conflict, however, merely adds dull moments without progressing the narrative or contributing meaningfully to the story’s development. The opening act of the game sees Talion and Celebrimbor in constant conflict over what to do and what to prioritize. Talion’s noble intentions and Celebrimbor constant complaints got so repetitive that it made me wish to turn off the game and simply rewatch the films.
Other characters like Idril, Baranor and Eltariel who you encounter across your journey, are also plagued with similar characterization issues of constantly being in conflict with everyone and everything. No matter what one says, you can expect the other to disagree, seemingly to create an illusion of depth in the storytelling.
World design
There’s really no way to sugarcoat it; the world design here is outdated at best and ugly at worst. Despite the variety of regions, they all ultimately feel like empty boxes with textures applied on top, lacking distinct character or depth. Take Minas Ithil for example, despite playing and running across the fortress city repeatedly while completing missions I simply can’t remember any landmark. There are no points of interest that stick out. The city simply doesn’t feel like a real place. Compare that with Gotham city from Batman: Arkham Knight –another WB published game– and the difference in design sensibility is even more obvious.
Over the years, we’ve witnessed the emergence of outstanding fantasy medieval worlds in video games, characterized by expansive environments, evocative atmospheres, and breathtaking architecture. Shadow of War is not one of those games.
Overall, I give the Worldbuilding of Middle-Earth: Shadow of War a 10 out of 20
Gameplay
Shadow of War’s gameplay mixes the melee combat of Batman Arkham with the parkour of Assassin’s Creed. While it sounds perfect on paper, it doesn’t work as well here. The fluid and fast paced combat of Batman Arkham games feel sluggish here. Talion moves slowly and trying to have him execute one action can often trigger another. Unlike the quick and devastating hits of Batman, Talion’s strikes and stabs don’t carry any weight to them and are rather slow in comparison. I found myself clicking the attack and counter buttons way more times than I needed to as I was unsure if the game is registering my inputs. This makes the combat feel way less responsive than it actually is.
Parkour on the other hand plays really well. The presence of an elvish wraith within Talion allows for fast running, climbing and even double jumping with zero fall damage. Breezing past enemies, jumping overhead and executing stealth finishes feel both satisfying and rewarding.
New armors, swords, bows, daggers and more can be earned from completing missions or killing powerful foes. There’s a clear attention to details with the various items you earn and putting on a new clock or carrying a new sword always felt great.
Nemesis
The game features the popular –and infamously patented- Nemesis System; a dynamic hierarchy of Orcs & Uruks captains and warchiefs that you can infilitrate. Each region is ruled by high-ranking foes with various traits, personalities and weaknesses. You can collect information about these powerful foes in advance or try your luck attacking blindly (not recommended). The Nemesis system handles foes in a unique and lively way, captains are randomly generated and replaced upon death. Killing one captain who happens to be a bodyguard to a warchief can save you the hassle of confronting both at a later time. Being killed by a captain would increase their levels, boost their ego, popularity and even increase the rarity of items they’d drop later when you defeat them.
Similarly, you’ll build an army of your own by recruiting all sorts of orcs including captains after wounding them enough. Unfortunately, you can’t recruit captains with higher levels than your character, this means the game doesn’t reward you for defeating more powerful foes and forces you to play at your own level. Once you defeat a powerful foe -that you can’t recruit- you can choose to shame them which will reduce their levels. You’ll still need to defeat them again before you can recruit them.
Side quests can earn you XP and in-game currency, but after playing a couple of these I decided to stick with the main story only.
The gameplay in Shadow of War is both excellent and terrible. It borrows the best elements of many excellent games but fails at implementing them in a fun coherent way. The game uses an interesting strategy system but punishes you for being good at combat by limiting who to recruit in your army. It offers many side quests which boil down to a couple of unique missions repeated dozens of times across the various regions.
Overall, I give the Gameplay of Middle-Earth: Shadow of War a 13 out of 20
Sounds and Music
Almost two decades later I still enjoy listening to the soundtracks of LOTR –and The Hobbit– movies while reading or writing. These are timeless classics with distinctive melodies covering some of the best music ever recorded. From sad melodies singling the death of heroes and the passing of ages to the uplifting, feel-good music of the Shire. The range of emotions these films have covered and mastered is awe-inspiring. Sadly, Shadow of War got none of that magic, the music in the game is some of the most forgettable music I’ve ever heard for any LOTR media. That’s not to say it’s terrible, it’s just so forgettable and uninspiring.
Voice acting on the other hand is excellent across the board. Troy Baker’s take on the Black Gate ranger is superb. Voices of orcs even surpass the one-dimensional evil voices of orcs from the films. I found myself enjoying each interaction with the captains and warchiefs. Even casual conversations of orcs were fun to listen to.
Overall, I give the Sound and Music of Middle-Earth: Shadow of War a 15 out of 20
Technical Performance and Visuals
Shadow of War came out in 2017, the same year as Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Horizon: Zero Dawn and 2 years after Arkham Knight and Witcher 3. My expectations for its visuals were held to the standards of these other openworld games. From the city of Minas Ithil to the lush forest of Núrn, the game did not wow me as I was hoping it would. Graphically the visuals are decent, models are good, environments are well detailed, but the game never impresses. There’s a mixture of both muddy textures and disappointing art direction that makes the game appears so unattractove.
Shadow of War’s art direction is both a hit and a miss. Its characters and creatures concept art are good enough, but the environment’s concept is one of the worst I’ve seen in a game of this scale. While openworld games emphasize their world design, the world of War feels like it was put together in a rush with little if any thought spared.
Performance is one area where the game excels at. Shadow of War is Steam Deck verified and runs excellent on the handheld. With medium settings, high texture filtering and high foliage distance, the game maintains 50FPS – 60FPS most of the time. It also enables HDR by default on the Deck OLED allowing for excellent lighting.
Overall, I give the Technical Performance and Visuals of Middle-Earth: Shadow of War a 13 out of 20
Untitled Critic’s Opinion
My first few hours in Shadow of War were so much fun. The list of annoyances, however, continued to obstruct my enjoyment and eventually made the game boring.
Handling an IP of this size and complexity was surely no easy task. While there are many positive elements to be found, the negative aspects of Shadow of War made it difficult for me to fully appreciate the good ones. There are good mechanics and ideas in Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, unfortunately they’re buried so deep not even the dwarves of Moria can find.
Fans of LOTR may find something to like about this game but I wouldn’t recommend it even to my LOTR fanatic friends.
The game’s numerous mechanics lack polish and focus; a mile wide but an inch deep. Despite the removal of microtransactions, the game doesn’t seem to have recovered from its original design. Many elements seem to have been built with mobile-styled microtransactions in mind. The way the game rewards you, level-caps, the awful Newsletter and DLC advertisements at every menu are reminders of a larger issue. One day, an excellent Middle-Earth game will be released, today is not that day.
Overall, I give Middle-Earth: Shadow of War an Untitled Critic’s Opinion of 10 out of 20
