Playing A Game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - Lord of the Hunt, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - The Bright Lord PC

Oh yeah, there's a new Lord of the Rings game out!, and ... hmm, you know what. Maybe I'll replay Shadow of Mordor instead.

Nearly a decade on, Talion's quest plays mostly as I remember it, for better and for worse:

  • Narratively explaining, and justifying, how Talion returns after death is still a cool ludonarrative trick.
  • The story overall isn't very impressive, with Talion and Celebrimbor experiencing little growth from beginning to end, and quest NPCs feeling entirely disposable.
  • Sneaking around and stealthily dispatching orcs is a brutal, merciless joy. So is un-stealthily brawling with a group as you dodge, counter, and execute them one by one. (Some frustrating bullshit notwithstanding, like captains with multiple invulnerabilities.)
  • It takes entirely too long for the "brand" power to unlock; without the ability to brainwash orcs, the first half of the game feels mechanically incomplete.

This time around, though, Shadow of Mordor's high points feel more familiar and its low points more prominent -- particularly since that "brand" pacing stumble hides the true potential of the Nemesis system for so long.

So while "Assassin's Creed in Mordor" is still a fun time, newer open-world adventures - especially this game's own sequel - have left it slightly diminished.

As for the DLC side-stories, which I hadn't played until now: I'm impressed! Though Lord of the Hunt and The Bright Lord don't exceed the main game's low narrative bar, they do take some surprisingly fun liberties with its gameplay.

In the main campaign, Caragors and Graugs were less frequently "useful tools" and more frequently "annoying obstacles"; but in Lord of the Hunt, stealthy panther-like Caragaths and disgusting acid-vomiting Wretched Graugs are powerful enough to be worth capturing and wielding. Using these formidable beasts to infiltrate (or straight-up invade) enemy strongholds puts a legitimately new twist on Talion's previous tactics.

And in The Bright Lord, as Celebrimbor doesn't just brand one or two Uruks but enlists entire regions of them, the endgame's promise of dominating Mordor and building an army against Sauron is finally fulfilled.

Although I wish I could've done that with Talion's full suite of overpowered upgrades, rather than Celebrimbor's more-limited abilities. (... wait, isn't that just Shadow of War? I guess it is!)

In retrospect, it does seem like a lot of Shadow of Mordor was just a stepping stone to the bigger, bad-asser maps and mechanics in Shadow of War.

But slaughtering orcs in this first installment was still enjoyable, and! I'm glad to have finally caught up on its DLCs' fascinating twists on that orc-slaughtering formula.

Rating: Good