One Does Not Simply Not Get Excited About Shadows of Mordor

Of all the games that have been announced and played up at this year’s E3, by far the one that I am most excited about is Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor. 

The upcoming Middle Earth game installment is an action role playing game set between The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings stories. The game is set to begin on the night that Sauron returns to Middle Earth in a corporeal form.  With his arrival, the orcs proceed to kill all of the Rangers at the Black Gate that took up camp there after Sauron was defeated previously.  But not all murdered Rangers stay dead.  

The player goes through the game as Talion (voiced by Troy Baker), who lost his family and everyone he cared for before being killed himself and then brought back by a Spirit of Vengeance.

Something that begins to make this game really great, though (besides it being a Lord of the Rings game) is the Nemesis System that it will feature.  With the Nemesis System, every enemy is different and remembers you.  If you injured an orc before, it will remember and may run away when you approach.  Or, if you’re killed by an orc it will remember that as well and question while you’re back before it tries to slaughter you once more.  

The Nemesis System, which is available in other games as well like the new Assassin’s Creed, is a great advancement for the gaming world.  I have always wondered if I’ve attacked the person I am currently attacking before, or if they saw me kill one of their friends (which sounds demented and psychotic, I realize) and now we can all know.

“But how is that possible?” you ask. “How does an orc remember killing you, if you die, shouldn’t you just go back to a checkpoint and play all over again,” you say. Haha, oh you poor thing, let me tell you how it is.

When Talion is killed and brought back he is more than the average man that he may encounter.  Not a Dúnedain like Aragorn, but as a Wraith. You know, a Wraith, like these creepy guys.

Being that he is a man, he can die.  But he is also immortal, so when he does die he just regenerates, but it isn’t like Call of Duty respawning. A significant amount of time can pass between death and resurrection.  That little puny orc that you beat the crap out of before death could now be a large general of an army, an army that has probably moved and thus made everything that you’ve gathered about them completely useless. Being a Wraith comes with some added bonuses, though.  You will have supernatural powers like teleport, which allows you to jump to targets to kill them without them even noticing your approach.  

Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor is currently in development by Monolith Productions and will be published by their parent company Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.  The game is set to launch on October 7th of this year and will be available for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. It should be noted, though, that although it will be available for previous consoles, it will not be up to par with the newer next-gen consoles which it is being developed for. 

If you pre-order the game now you can gain access to the Dark Ranger character along with some added perks depending on where you order it from.