MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR
Hold that fort
Building an army is the meat of the game
released OUT NOW! Reviewed on Ps4 Also on Xbox One, PC Publisher Warner Bros
Initially, as you scurry around Minas Ithil, capturing towers and doing missions for people you struggle to care about, Shadows Of War will have you questioning whether the Middle-earth series peaked with 2014’s Shadow Of Mordor. But a couple of hours in it reveals a widened web of systems that embed you deep in the chaos of orcish politics. And you’ll soon find that Aragorn knock-off Talion and elf-wraith sidekick Celebrimbor are just a convenient tool for interacting with orcs – dismembering them; building relationships with them through conquest, betrayal and combat; listening as they hurl invective at you. These interactions feel genuinely intimate, and you’ll feel gutted when an orc you were desperate to recruit gets cut down by one of your captains, or one of your top generals betrays you, forcing you into a fight that ends with you cleaving him in two.
At the same time as things have become more intimate, they’ve expanded in the way of warfare. You can send dominated orcs to ambush other orcs, backstab Warchiefs, and level up by fighting to the death in fighting pits. It’s now a game of scheming as well as hand-to-hand combat.
Eventually, you build up an army ready to assault one of the five regions’ major forts. You assign your orc leaders troops, caragors and siege equipment, then charge into battle alongside them. Combat is much the same as before: some new moves – like firing arrows in mid-air – have been added, and others removed. The net result is positive.
There is a plot amidst all this. Talion has forged a new ring of power, which Celebrimbor believes could prevent the latter from turning into a dark lord. This unfolds over several separate questlines. But running around Mordor and building an army is the meat of the game.
The game doesn’t really show what’s new until a good three hours in, and the menu screens are slow and confusing. But these are minor faults in a game that does exactly what it needed to: turn its predecessor’s best idea into a ruthless, rewarding gameplay loop. You’re always anticipating that next betrayal, grooming that next commander, besieging forts, or levelling up. Mordor may not be a pretty place, but you won’t want to leave for a long time. Robert Zak
Listen carefully to the Uruk captains and you may hear voice actor Troy Baker do his Joker voice from Arkham Origins.