Playing A Game Middle-earth: Shadow of War - Desolation of Mordor PC

Just as with Blade of Galadriel, I'd previously dismissed Desolation of Mordor for neglecting some of Shadow of War's fundamentals -- in particular, Talion's "gravewalking" through death with minimal penalty. Baranor, unfortunately, is a mere mortal and his life uh ... resets, upon death.

This DLC's rogue-like approach, where you can lose hired mercenaries and looted gear upgrades if a captain gets the better of you, made me put my gamepad down in annoyed frustration a couple times. But I was lured back, and ultimately finished Baranor's story, thanks to Desolation of Mordor's other design ambition: Batman tech.

Baranor may not have elf magic, but he does have gadgets - okay, "Numenorean artifacts" - which let him grapple up walls, glide through the air, and lob explosives from afar, plus a few tricks for controlling crowds and stunning captains.

Although the process of unlocking those abilties is needlessly obtuse (the game's hints about their locations are garbage -- seriously, just find a map online), they don't reset when Baranor dies, so prioritizing them is a no-brainer. And with a full utility belt, Baranor is a pretty unstoppable force, even without looted weapons or hired mercs.

Heck, after I'd collected all the Numenor tech, using it to plow through orc captains and outposts and the Shindram fortress was fairly trivial. Not that I'm complaining; I love mowing down orcs. With upgrades, Baranor can feel even more overpowered than Talion did, so long as he stops to refill his health kits every now and then.

It's a shame that Desolation of Mordor didn't aim higher with its narrative: aside from a few fun bits of banter with Baranor's brother Serka, and brief interactions with Torvin (yeah, the dwarf from Lord of the Hunt!), there just isn't much to it. But I guess a threadbare story makes sense for this DLC's focus on replaying and speedrunning through Lithlad.

Which isn't really my cup of tea. But! I'm still glad that I gave Desolation of Mordor enough chances to enjoy deploying a deadly gadget arsenal on a hapless fortess of orcs.

Better than: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - The Bright Lord
Not as good as: Middle-earth: Shadow of War - Blade of Galadriel
I dunno if I should get my hopes up: but this DLC suggests that Monolith could pull off emulating Rocksteady's formula in their planned Wonder Woman game.

Rating: Good