What was initially a cool and novel feature becomes a chore as you need to continue raiding fortresses to unlock the game’s ‘true ending’. You may have to raid the same four fortresses more than five times each throughout your adventure and this becomes tedious very quickly. This was heavily featured in the game’s marketing but it’s doubtful that anyone truly expected how central a pillar this system would be to the core game.
This is also true of the new mechanic of raiding fortresses. It is fun for the first half of the game, but it soon begins to wear off its welcome. However, in large scale battles (which often take place in the endgame) combat devolves into button smashing with too many enemies attacking you at once with you being left with few ways to defend yourselves. The game’s combat is fast with a hack-and-slash feel, with various skills being unlocked through perks which add further ways to approach a target. It is incredibly rewarding to watch this system revolve around your decisions and creates some of the game’s best moments. Turn your back on your supposed ally and you might have a mutiny on your hands. Recruit all of a Warchief’s Captains, and suddenly you have the means to take that Warchief’s fort from under his very nose. Kill an Captain’s bodyguard and that orc’s blood-brother might ambush you in the wild. The system creates an intricate web of orcs, each with their own strengths, weaknesses and relationships to each other and who will react to decisions you make. The game’s ‘Nemesis System’ remains its true highlight. They journey to different regions of Mordor to recruit Orcs with each region being distinctly different from each other. Shadow of War plays much like its predecessor: Talion, alongside Celebrimbor, fight their way through hordes of Orcs, Uruks, Olog-hai and drakes to build themselves an army to rival the Dark Lord’s. Much of what was loved before remains but its new systems are too few to demand such a high level of grind in later levels (Image: Stefans02 via Flickr with license)
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