Middle-earth: Shadow of War: Difference between revisions

Middle-earth: Shadow of War
Developer(s)	Monolith Productions
Publisher(s)	Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Director(s)	Michael de Plater
Engine	LithTech
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 Xbox One
Release	WW: October 10, 2017
Genre(s)	Action role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is an upcoming action role-playing video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It is the sequel to 2014's Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and it is scheduled to be released worldwide on October 10, 2017 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A companion game was released for iOS and Android as a free-to-play top-down video game.^[1]

Shadow of War continues the previous game's narrative, which is based on J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium and set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Like its predecessor, the game also takes heavy inspiration from director Peter Jackson's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings film adaptations. The player continues the story of the ranger Talion and the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor, who shares Talion's body, as they forge a new Ring of Power to amass an army to fight against Sauron. The game builds upon the "Nemesis System" introduced in Shadow of Mordor, allowing Talion to gain followers from several races of Middle-earth, including Uruks and Ologs, and plan out complex strategies using these to complete missions.

Gameplay

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is an action role-playing game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective, following from its predecessor. The player controls the game's protagonist Talion, who has several natural athletic and combat abilities as a ranger of Gondor, but also has unique abilities provided by the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor, with whom he shares his body. The player uses their combined abilities to complete various missions, typically aimed to disrupt the armies of Sauron. The game includes main quests that drive the game's narrative, and numerous optional quests that can help the player boost Talion's abilities and Followers via the game's "Nemesis System". In contrast to the previous game, which was more of a hack and slash, the sequel will have an action role-playing approach, creating a more personalized experience for each player.^[2] It will also feature dynamic weather system as well as day-night cycle which affects the gameplay and enemy behaviour.

The Nemesis System expands upon its introduction in Shadow of Mordor to apply to a larger part of the world, including other characters called Followers that have behavior guided by how the player-character has interacted with them. Players will be able to transfer their top Nemesis and their most loyal follower from Shadow of Mordor into Shadow of War.^[3] It will include an in-game store from which players can purchase elements to improve their Followers, such as purchasing support of new allies or abilities, or loot chests that contain randomized items of various rarity. The in-game store can use currency earned in game, though players may also purchase such elements with microtransactions.^[4] The inclusion of microtransactions in a full-price single-player game has been criticized by game journalists, although later on, it was announced that the game would have multiplayer as well.^[5][6][7]

The game's multiplayer features a "Social Conquest mode", in which players are able to invade other players' fortresses and attempt to conquer them. This mode has two settings: friendly and ranked. Friendly allows the player to invade someone's fortress, without the risk of losing your army. Ranked, on the other hand, allows the player to invade, but with a risk of losing some of their Orc Followers permanently.

Mobile versions

The mobile companion versions of Shadow of War are played as a real-time strategy role-playing game from a top-down perspective, where players can recruit characters from not only the console/PC versions of the game itself, but also characters from its 2014 predecessor Shadow of Mordor and even the Lord of the Rings film trilogy to fight Sauron's forces in small-scale, action-packed battles.^[8] Like the console/PC versions of the game, players can make use of the Nemesis system to gain extra advantages in battle,^[9] as well as make optional in-game purchases.

Plot

Shadow of War continues the narrative from Shadow of Mordor, following Talion who is still infused with the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor. Talion has forged a new Ring of Power, which Celebrimbor believes could be controlled to avoid becoming a Dark Lord and instead become a powerful king. Talion, while less interested in power, believes Celebrimbor's cause is just and agrees to help in facing the newly returned Sauron and his growing armies, including the Nazgûl.^[10]

Development

Creative Director Michael de Plater said that the development of Shadow of Mordor was a learning study for Monolith in how to make open world games, and the development team limited themselves in the scope of what they could deliver for that game. With those lessons learned, de Plater said that Monolith was able to take a bolder step forward for Shadow of War, saying "[t]his was our ambition to do the big, blockbuster version of the ideas we’d begun to explore in the first game. It's kind of our Terminator 2 to Terminator."^[11]

Monolith wanted to move the game from the more solitary player experience to one that captured the epic battles shown in The Lord of the Rings films. They created battle systems that enable large-scale battles where parts of the battle would be managed by the various Followers that the player has recruited, thus allowing the player to still focus on the violence and brutality of close-quarter combat.^[11] Recognizing the violence inherent with the Middle-earth setting, Monolith aimed to include light humorous elements that play off the thirst for violence that the orcs have, so that the game would not "wallow in it, or feel sadistic".^[11] The console/PC versions were later confirmed to be rated Mature by the ESRB, like their predecessor^[12], although the mobile versions are less violent and were given the milder Teen rating.^[13]

Death of Michael Forgey

On March 3, 2017, Monolith's Executive Producer, Michael David Forgey, died of cancer. To commemorate the loss of Shadow of War's Executive Producer, Monolith and Warner Bros announced a DLC named "Forthog Orc-Slayer". Originally, $3.50 of the proceeds from the DLC made from any of the majority of the U.S. states and internationally^[14] would go to the Forgey family through December 31, 2017.^[15] On September 27 2017, the DLC was be made free to all who purchased the game and all proceeds were refunded to those who purchased it beforehand in favor of Warner Bros making a lump sum donation to the Forgey family.^[16]

Release

Shadow of War will be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows both via Steam and through Microsoft's "Play Anywhere" program for Windows 10 with the Xbox One version. The Play Anywhere feature will extend to Microsoft's upcoming premium console, the Xbox One X, upon that console's launch, which is planned for the end of 2017.^[17]

The title was originally scheduled to be shipped in August 2017, but in June of that year, Warner Bros. Interactive announced that the release would be put off for two months, until October 10, 2017, to make sure the game meets "the highest quality experience" for players.^[18] Despite this delay, the mobile companion versions of Shadow of War were released on September 28, 2017, ahead of the console/PC versions.^[9]

Awards

Middle-earth: Shadow of War received nominations for E3 2017's "Best of Show", "Best Console Game", "Best PC Game", and "Best Action/Adventure Game".^[19]

References

External links

• Official website