Shadow of War: The Uruk Hai Are Coming; the Uruk Hai Are Coming!
Shadow of War is an action-adventure 3rd person game based in the universe of Lord of the Rings. It is a sequel to Shadow of Mordor and is currently the final game in the series. You play as Talion, a ranger from the black gate who is unable to die since he was given a curse of undying from Celebrimbor, who was Sauron’s closest friend until he saw that Sauron isn't exactly who he was and betrayed him, which led to Celebrimbor death and they both must stop Sauron’s army by sneaking into enemy lines and cause a uprising in his army. Now, what makes this game so good is three factors: combat, mission, and finally, the main selling point of the game, the nemesis system. Now, first off, this is the combat.
The combat in Shadow of War is pretty basic but good. You have your basic attacks, such as a ranged bow attack, a sword swing, and a counter to when an orc swings at you. The combat is like the Batman Arkham games, and just like them, Talion is able to unlock more abilities as the game goes on. As you play the game, Talion levels up, and this allows him to unlock abilities in 5 different skill trees: combat, predator, wraith, ranged, and finally, story. Most of these are easy to explain, like combat allows you to do more things in combat, like freeze your opponents through blocking their attacks, and some are harder to get, like a predator, which allows you to upgrade stealth-based skills. Along with the skill tree, this game has a gear progression, although it only affects some gameplay. Now, with a game like this, you would need stuff to do, and thankfully, you do it through the missions.
Next up is the missions, and this one should be short. The mission in this game may not be a big part of the game, but it's what you can do in some of the missions. The game focuses on Talion’s mission to stop Sauron, and to this, you need to kill orc captains who serve as bosses in this game. Commonly, you do find missions scattered about, and they tie into the nemesis system, which I’ll talk about later. These missions include fortress sieges, which are large-scale battles; assassination missions; death threats, which are one of 20 types of fights, ambushes, and many more. But what makes these missions so good is the nemesis system.
Now, finally, the most significant part of this game is the nemesis system. The nemesis system is a game type of which is where they are randomly generated named enemies, and it has only featured in the Middle Earth games. This NPC will have all sorts of interactions, affecting the gameplay. For example, if you die to a simple orc in this game, he’s not going to be a one-and-done problem. He's gonna be forever until killed. The reason for this is that he got a promotion and beat on the many orc captain stations in the location. Then what could happen if you just kill this orc get some experience, but what if you fail at it? Well, he levels up, and if he levels up enough, he’ll become a warchief, then finally an overlord. It’s these encounters where the nemesis system succeeds, and it makes simple deaths become stories of revenge because this known-for-nothing orc killed you, spat in your face, and called your mom a hag. Along with that, if orcs are recruited to your side, they still have some interesting encounters, as they can betray you, randomly save your life, or even give you intel on enemy captains. The Nemesis system is one of the best systems in gaming, and it's a shame it only really makes an appearance here.
With the gameplay, mission, and Nemesis system, Shadow of War is a very good game. However, in recent years, people have wanted more even though Talion’s story ended long ago. Even if that is the case, Shadow of War will always be one of my favorite games, and I hope we can revisit Mordor sometime soon to pick up the pieces of what was left.