After the Shadow of Mordor, we can once again enjoy Ranger Talion and elven wraith Celebrimbor in the new game called Middle Earth: Shadow of War. If you love slicing Orcs, you will be glad to know that that’s one large part of the game, but there is so much more to it.
Middle Earth: Shadow Of War Release Date
Shadow of War will be released on October 10. It was supposed to come out in August, but they delayed that so that the team could finish everything.
“Monolith is committed to delivering the highest quality experience,” the developer says. “In order to do this, we have made the difficult decision to move our launch date to ensure that Middle-Earth: Shadow of War will deliver on that promise.”
Story
The story of the new game follows the events from Shadow of Mordor, so now we have Talion and Celebrimbor forge their own Ring of Power in order to be more powerful in their battle against the Dark Lord Sauron. Because of that ring, Talion will have new abilities, and he and Celebrimbor are now the Bright Lord.
Ringwraiths will also be featured in the game, while the Witch King has conquered the human city Minas Ithil. Mordor is spreading its powers across Middle Earth, and the war is coming. Meanwhile, the story focuses on territory beyond the Mount Doom slopes, which means that you will discover new, exciting places. Also, there will be forests, snow-covered mountains but there are also evil fortresses Seregost and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. However, not everything will be happening in these dark places, and you will travel through greener Gondor.
Enemies
The Shadow of Mordor had a great nemesis system, but this will be even better in the Shadow of War. You can form rivalries with a hierarchy of generated orcs, but now, Overlords are introduced, which are placed higher above Warchiefs.
You will attack the enemy fortresses, which will be all different and based on the orcs who live there. For instance, the Overlord, who is in charge of one of those has a Warchief who specializes in fire, you will be able to find flaming catapults and boiling oil in the castle. Also, the fortress’ appearance depends on the tribe, which is another new feature. If we are talking about the Beastmaster tribe, they have access to special creatures that can be used in a battle against you.
Moreover, you will have followers, which is another key feature in the game. In other words, you will have your own hierarchy of Orcs, and you will not only create rivalries, but also friendships. These followers can save your life when you don’t even expect it. When it comes to assaults, your friends are important because each of them has a team which can do specials tasks. Also, each of your followers can have one upgrade, but you need to pay for that with a silver coin currency that can be earned through task completion or roaming in the open world.
There are several ways of attacking the castle, and one is finding an intel that reveals which kind of Orcs reside there and this will help you gather your followers correctly for that task. Furthermore, you can assassinate Warchiefs beforehand or make them your spies. When you breach the gates, you need to capture victory points, kill Warchiefs and go against Overlord.
The Other Elements
The RPG elements in the game will also be improved, and skill trees will now offer even more customization. Also, there will be more RPG-like gear in the Shadow of War, and when you equip it, it changes Talion’s appearance, but it also gives him passive bonuses. The best piece of gear is definitely newly-forged Ring of Power which provides several bonuses, and it allows for more to be unlocked.
Another major step forward is the fact that Talion will be able to ride a drake. You can now go to the skies and toast Orcs and outposts since drakes can breathe fire. The open world is full of excitement, and there are outposts which are in charge of lesser-ranked Orcs. If you fail a mission, you will not be able to continue it from a certain point. Instead, your enemies will be stronger and your friends captured, so the next time you try it, you will have different objectives.
System Requirements
Minimum:
OS: Windows 7 SP1 with Platform Update for Windows 7
Processor: Intel i5-2550K, 3.4 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTX 670 | Radeon HD 7950
Storage: 60 GB available space
Recommended:
OS: Windows 10 version 14393.102 or higher required
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTX 970 or GeForce GTX 1060 6GB | Radeon R9 290X or Radeon RX 480
Storage: 60 GB available space
Pre-Orders and Editions
You can pre-order four editions of Shadow of War with the standard edition including the game and a code to redeem a Legendary Champions War Party and an Epic Sword of Dominion. The Silver Edition is next in line which offers all of this with the Slaughter Tribe Nemesis Expansion a Silver War chest and the Outlaw Tribe Nemesis Expansion.
The Gold contains everything Silver does, plus The blade of Galadriel story expansion, The Desolation of Mordor story expansion and a Gold War chest. The best one is limited Mithril Edition which builds up on the Gold and brings a set of lithographs, a premium case, a magnetic Ring of Power, a cloth map of Mordor and some other entertaining details.
Trailers
There are three trailers for Shadow of War – announcement, story and open world. The latter two give us an insight into the game, and you can see both here. Also, you can see the announcement trailer, and there is a 16-minute walkthrough below as well. Enjoy.
