Middle-earth™: Shadow of War™

Nothing compares. This game is amazing. No other game gives me the satisfaction of playing and playing and never stopping.

10/10, 100000 times better than ksi's new song

Middle-earth™: Shadow of War™

This game is an absolute blast, though not canon to Lord of the Rings, the world takes itself seriously while making the enemy factions have the most depth of any game I've ever played. The story is simple, but engaging and enhanced by the Nemesis system that dictates how bosses act and level up. The Nemesis system itself carries the game and is peak game design where the player makes these micro stories within their playthroughs. I have completed two full runs of the base game, two runs of the Desolation DLC w/ one being a gold run, and earned all the achievements. While the game has some movement issues where the character will get stuck on geometry, and there are some enemies who feel like they unfairly one-shot the player, the whole game is incredibly fair and over equips the player to kill anything in their way. The player, with enough planning, can be a force of nature that can not be stopped. I highly recommend this game to anyone, especially if you are into Assassin's Creed games and the Batman games. Difficulty wise, Nemesis is where the game feels the hardest while minimizing the unfair moments, though a normal playthrough is definitely the way to go if you haven't played before. 9/10 game in my eyes, 100% grab during a sale.

There's a mission where you are introduced to the fort seige mechanic by a story npc, but it won't remove itself from the map and advace the story no matter how much you beat it, so its stuck in a loop.

This has been a known issue since launch.

RPG + LOTR, the greatest of combinations. Yet this pails in comparison to the amount of combos you'll be hitting on Uruks in this game. Fun, intuitive combat system with satisfying executions and a unique nemesis system. Highly recommend.

Not much else to say that other's haven't said. It's just a great game all around, with SO many things to do. If you like LOTR, Batman Arkham series, RTS games, God of War, and anything that lets you build and kit out an army, you'll love this game.

If you are a fan of Lord of the Ring, then this is for you. Gamestyle is like AC and The Hobbit combined. The environment is not that much, but it gives you freedom to explore. Combat is good but can be tweaked even further. Doing this review in 2024, and this game was released on 2017, so any changes might be irrelevant to now-produced games.

Very clever Hack & Slash game disguised as a RPG. The fighting and the skill trees are rewarding and somehow it never gets dull to get back in the fray and kick some butt.

One advice, read some beginner guides so that you know what you are doing and where to work to. There's more to it than hack and slash loads of ugly bastards to smithereens. Another advice. Take your time cleaning up the regions to get stronger and to get all the fun out of it.

Well done.

amazing story along with awesome gameplay, the nemesis system is amazing and will bring you back to play even after completing the main story

i whitewashed baranor with a mod to be more lore accurate. the orcs are enough.

Fun game. This is my second time playing it in like 4-5 years.

The nemesis system is cool but there's only so many times where you go to a new region and you're *excited* about starting the whole orc domination expedition again. There was a weird point for me that the story felt like it got in the way of the game.

Following NPCs absolutely sucks in this game. They're that perfect speed between your top speed and your running speed so you end up running into them nonstop which kinda stutters the pace of the game. Luckily each time you have to follow an NPC it's only about 1 min before the mission lets you loose. It's also a tough juxtaposition from the free roam of the game because free roam lets you MOVE and missions kinda keep you tethered to someone until it unhooks the leash.

Story was functioning and fun at times. The orcs were entertaining but the human characters were so serious and grim that it almost felt like a parody of some dark crime show.

Overall a fun play. The traversal and nemesis system is pretty neat but there is a LOT of game to get through that you may or may not feel is worth it. I got this on sale so my dollar per hour went far but I was READY to finish it hours before I did.

Get it on sale. Play the main missions. If you love it then there is enough post game content to keep you entertained.

Middle-earth™: Shadow of War™ took everything I loved about *Shadow of Mordor* and raised it to a whole new level. This game builds on the strong foundation of its predecessor, delivering an even richer experience that kept me hooked for hours.

The story expands the world of Middle-earth brilliantly, diving deeper into the conflict and giving Talion a worthy continuation of his journey. The addition of new regions and beautifully crafted environments makes exploration a thrill, and each location feels unique and true to the Tolkien universe. The combat is as smooth and rewarding as ever, with new abilities, brutal moves, and even more varied enemies. The Nemesis System also evolves here, allowing you to not only face memorable enemies but also recruit them, leading to massive battles that add a whole new layer of strategy and satisfaction.

The background music is perfect, setting the tone for every scene and amplifying the intensity of battles and the haunting beauty of the landscapes. Each session feels cinematic and immersive, thanks to the powerful soundtrack and polished visuals.

Shadow of War is easily one of the most engaging games I’ve played in a long time, and it’s impossible not to lose track of time when you’re fully immersed in its world. For anyone who enjoyed *Shadow of Mordor* or loves action-adventure games with depth, this game is an absolute must-play.

one of the more unique and fun game of all time, considering you not only get the nemesis system but different types of uruks to get and different forts to take and the great story, I'd says it's a legendary game.

After buying for just 5 EUR in sale it is hard to downvote. Main reason why I don't like the game is the stupid keyboard assignment on PC: run + jump on the same key? This toon often does not what I want.
Best think and final reason for downvote: Upgrade gear is bound to key 2, scrap gear to key 3. Scrapping is instant and there is no chance e.g. go back to a previous save of checkpoint.

single player game but so much to do like the shadow nazgul defense wars and training your orcs in arenas to siege online player's bases. awesome!!! talion rules!!!

Well to start with the "drama" surrounding the whole nemesis system, its fun and good but its not enough unique for a whole patent thing imo. But the game on itself hold quite decently enough for it to be "THE game with nemesis system". Did play majority of the game including the DLCs but didnt really go into endgame that is repetetive online sieges but heard its bunch of cheaters so i dont think i missed much.
As for quick rating on top for the tldr: 7/10, "quick" 50-80 hour game to turn off brain for bit. Better than previous game but still get on MAJOR sale only. Oh and there isnt any pay2win lootbox stuff anymore even if there used to.

As for the proper rating:

Gameplay wise: Overall, major fun but could have been way better.

The game takes all the previous game mechanics and improves them either in more variety or new mechanics. Uruks have more sharp sticks, you get more refined sharp sticks system too and now you get bunch of fancy mechanics that work with each other in some way. Very fun actually but its bit too overwhelming as buch of them are not really usable.
Fighting is similar to previous game and is still pretty much the "batman" style combo type with tools and what not.
The previous game didnt have difficulty sliders meanwhile this one has bunch more difficulties, i found nemesis to be perfect middle ground and other just tedious and annoying instead of difficult.
The nemesis system was fun and how orks had their own personality made some of them even more fun to use, tho i hated how i couldnt somehow get my own "perfect orc" without major grind.
Sieges are seen once done them all thing, very repetetive and nothing really ever changes, fun for first few times but quite dissapointing later on.
Online reverenge targets also sounds like fun, then you realise majority of them are farm attempts or cheated orc turned betrayers and the whole mission is generic outpost style mission like you would get with any other orc reverenge.

Visuals and Graphics: Nothing really amazing but still ok, keeps up quite decently with both looks and performance. The Cutscenes do suffer from major quality reductions tho.

Story: The main game story is mostly boring and once again the fun parts are in collectables.
The characters do have the classic tropes that can be predictable and all, but still are quite bland. The one character i got excited for when i seen him was in DLC and he still turned out to be bland make two three jokes and appearances and nothing else outside of upgrading your character. VERY dissapointing but at least its not absolute cringe to sit through.
Ironically the only characters i enjoyed were the orcs specific ones both in story and the random generated ones.

Bugs: I have actually managed to get so many bugs compared to what others describe i am baffled on how such basic bugs only appeared from me.
Dozen of times falling through the ground/wall cause i got smacked in some weird way or jumped on some weird platform.
Quite alot of walls that you can just walk through, dozen of platforms that wont let you jump off properly and get stuck on.
Got launched dozen of times across the map for some reason. Lack of animations or some animations bugging out didnt happen alot but i still managed to see the classic corpse being streatched across the map bug.
Character refusing to climb or fall or do anything has happened to me so many times it got really annoying.
Crashed only once and im not even sure it was the games fault, but at least there isnt any softlocking or full game breaking bug i happened to get on.

Good game but scummy patent on the nemesis system

Story is forum fanfic level of Trash but its kinda fun in its own ways. Shelob is a sexy elf witch for some reason?

Gameplay is amazing and the nemesis system makes the game super replayable.

It's fun and addicting for a while but when you get into the whole fortress thing, you quickly see that the point was to sell cards of special orcs and the progression slows down into repetition and grind.

A shame because the nemesis system is great, but WB sit on it rather than use it.

FWIW I beat the game on console at release.

I can't really bring myself to recommend this game in 2024. It has a lot of good things about it, but the core gameplay is pretty dated. I just booted it up on hardest difficulty and it was an absolute breeze; mash X to attack, hit Y to counter, repeat. The movement is floaty and parkour is hit or miss.

Furthermore, there's the whole drama about the nemesis system. If you don't know, the biggest thing this game has going for it is a system that allows you to either infiltrate the enemy's ranks or have enemies come back for revenge, amidst other scenarios. It's fantastic, but the publisher copyrited it and refuses to do anything with it since this released. Really messed up.

The one type of person I'd recommend this to is someone who really likes Tolkien. There's so much to get out of it if you enjoy middle earth, so it's definitely worth playing if you want to explore that world. However, if you're just looking for an 3rd person stealth action game, play assassin's creed.

This game is very good. First act kinda eats nuts but if you stick around it gets better i swear it does please please stay it gets better woahhhhh better better betet bertt bb etbtb eb bBTBETBBTE BTET TEBTB BET

My first play through is on on hardest difficulty (without the bonuses) and this is a mistake I am massively enjoying. I have under 30% completion at the time of writing this and I have already had my moneys worth

i enjoyed this more than the previous one. having a fortress made it more interactive. end-game play was too much of a mess during fortress fights and you have chiefs/orcs and enemy chiefs/orcs all in the same place attacking each other and mass chaos and you die too quickly from AoE damage from everyone. again, fun game, but i end-game content doesn't flow well in my opinion.

Great game, love playing it if I want to feel like a king, Very beautiful and great story.

Came here after trying Shadow of Mordor as many claimed this title to be more fun than it's predecessor. I feel this title to be on par with the previous title and my sentiments are the same, so I'm re-sharing what I said about the first game:

Shadow of Mordor War is somewhere between a modern superhero title and everything Assassin's Creed, both of which I find to be incredibly boring. This and similar titles are geared towards less skilled gamers and IP fans, which is great for those who want to interact with universes they care about without unneeded frustration.

There's little precision or skill required to progress the game or tackle designated challenges, environmental traversal is highly automated, and there's little reward for exploration. I like LotR and some of the cannon, but there is not a single element I encountered while playing this game that brought even the slightest hint of joy.

Amazing gameplay and combat. Would recommend if you want a game of parkor to.

Nemesis system is a lot of fun to play with

This is a one solid game that surpasses ones released before it, with it, and after it. YOU BETTER PLAY THIS MASTERPIECE because this is pure video game GOLD untouched and untainted by the poison of selfish ugly people. This game has PERFECTED its systems like no other, RESPECTS its source material to not tarnish its own story and its basis, and POLISHED itself to make the environment, sound, characters, everything so it feels right. There's a lot more amazing things I can say, too much in fact so you HAVE TO PLAY IT because the future of gaming is filled with corporate woke evil shit that can't even pray to get an inch of where this game is standing.

The fact they didn't put a single intentionally made ugly character with different colored hair that talks more than 3 sentences everytime they're on screen is a testament of this amazing game,. This will stand in the test of time as a reminded to future shit games what a TRUE BRIGHT LORD is.

Save yourself the frustration and just play Batman AN. This game was clearly just a cash grab. The horrible orc mechanic, the mission glitches even on important repeatable missions! Movement is just as clunky as the first if not worse... The story my god the story seems to be written by a 10 year old. Strange political narratives being pushed randomly in the game. Ya, cant recommend.

perfect blend of fantasy and army building. one of my favorite army building games.

I'll start by saying I am a pretty big TLOTR nerd and this game holds itself well within the halls of the Tolkien lore sphere.

PROS - The story is pretty interesting and the nemesis system has clearly had a little tweak for the better but it's basically the same game. If you are a grindnerd for the repetitive combat from SoM, you'll certainly get something from it.
Cutting down the captains that shit talk you is very satisfying, and you do get some very interesting enemy characters too.

CONS - You're just playing Shadow of Mordor again, but with bugs. Within mere hours i encountered character functionality lock preceding and after tutorial messages and twice during combat the QTEs just didn't appear. Very disappointed as this was an issue i found in the first game also.
It's over-worked and unfinished and was definitely rushed and you can tell just by the sluggish movement and rigid combat.


VERDICT - Like most AAA games, if the devs had spent more time on patching and cleaning the QoL issues, listening to the bad reviews rather than only jerking themselves off over the praise, This would have been a game worthy of the pricetag and i would have thoroughly enjoyed it. As it stands, buy it from CDkeys when it's cheap if you're going to or prepare to feel the need to be refunded.

An amazing game at its current state. Never bought it at launch because of the predatory loot boxes and mtx it had, now that they removed it the game is worth playing.

Game is watered down and not as good as shadow of mordor...has a lot of cool new features but that's it

Here is my Nemesis Story for the game from when I had it on Xbox 7 years ago. Some details are dramatized and may be out of proportion.

Upon completing act one and finally being able to dominate orcs I met my first rival. Tugog Gold Theif from the Outlaw Tribe. He kept cheating death and returning. Eventually it got so bad I ran away to Gorgoth where I decided I could be left alone away from him. I was wrong, he followed me to Gorgoth. He didn't stop at just following me though, he then went on a killing rampage there and became a level 51 overlord in Gorgoth despite the fact that we were still in the early game in the twenty-thirty levels. I tried to send 5 spies to kill him but he managed to kill them all and become level 60 so now my game progress has been stalled by this Tugog Gold Theif and so I dominated every orc in the region and sent them to spy on him. Now I return to the throne room and proceed to 20v1 the guy with my like 19 spies and he actually kills most of them before dying but he falls. Finally, my game is at peace without him!

... or so I thought but then he returned again. so I decided if he wasn't going to leave me alone he could at least be on my side so I shamed him down and recruited the dude but he betrayed me in 5 seconds flat. Afterwards, I jumped him with 2 of my captains and shame him down so that if he was going to harass me, he would so as a low leveled fodder. I was wrong. After excessive shaming, he became a maniac and actually leveled up to like level 65 screaming his lungs out, keep in mind we're still in the early-game here. He proceeds to go on another killing spree and is at this point reaching max level in the early-game and becomes a legendary orc.

I return to the first option of running away to a different region. This time he does not follow me and since he's in a region controlled by me he can't become overlord this time. I decide it's time to just speedrun the campaign and ignore him. Surprisingly, beating the campaign was faster then dealing with him.

After I arrived at the end game I decided it was time to return and finish the fight. I shamed out his iron will and recruited him. This time I promoted him to overlord before he even had a chance to betray me. Now I sent him a one way ticket to a place I know that would take care of him real good... the online overlord fight pits. To no ones surprised he was curb stomped in the first round and marked dead and was finally out of my game and was promptly replaced by another less annoying character.

Fun game. Could play for several hundred hours. Glad this went on sale for 90% off.

The story is absolutely awful and the game is a tad bloated compared to its predecessor, but there's still a lot to love here with the nemesis system and the various personalities of the orcs. A worthwhile purchase when it's on deep discount, provided you can stomach or ignore the storyline. Some of the new characters are pretty cool, though.

It's beautiful, I recommend it, and I liked the skill system. I advise you to play the previous part before playing this part, which is called Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™. Each part gives a relatively different gaming experience.

The first act is the worst part of this game, once you get past that it all gets way better. And if you want fights you've got to use your brain for, play on nemesis difficulty. All the bugs and eyeframe times are all way more messed up (at least for me) on brutal and gravewalker. (Such as getting football tackled and killed while I was stealth killing a grunt)

Mechanically a far superior game to its predecessor in almost every aspect.
A few gripes:
-They should have the artifacts' audio in text form in a sidebar, same as the last game, not sure why they decided to make it so you need to find them in the related appendices.
-Targeting enemies has gotten considerably more difficult, but I can't explain how or why.
-The enemy monologues on engagement/mission start can still chain together and go on for too long in general, there should be a skip button.

Story-wise, it is about the same, but weaker in a few cases. The ending to the main campaign felt rushed, and character motivations were opaque for assorted betrayals.

Game's fun controls can be a little bit of a pain at times but custom bindings alleviate most of those issues

A backlog exists for a reason.

Originally I picked this game up when the lootbox fiasco was overturned and a hefty discount was placed during a sale. I managed to get 16 hours into it, was bored stiff from the uninspired and piecemeal story (won't get into the lore debate), and frustrated by the combat and movement systems to the point I couldn't take it anymore. Flashforward to a week ago and a short term memory later, I decide to clear it, only to get to Stage 3 of the Shadow of War (which use to be 10 stages) and declare defeat. What was the straw that broke the camel's back? Realizing the next few hours of grinding coins to upgrade defenses just for a single cutscene I saw back when the lootbox fiasco was still going on, and an achievement.

There is very little about this game I can honestly defend. Combat works when in smaller groups or facing one or two special enemies, but falls apart when your inability to lock on screws you out of an easy kill (stealth from above, constantly being drawn to attacking allies instead of the enemy) or prevents you from reliably reacting to enemy inputs due to anti-vaulting traits on bigger enemies/monsters, or enemy hitbox sizes preventing you from rolling (due to you being dragged to the closest enemy over the clearly open space between them). The Nemesis system, while impressive with the amount of names and voice lines generated, is just a randomizer to help smoke screen how little story there is and even less meaningful gameplay options outside of those interactions (worse yet, more competent studios will never get the chance to show what the system could really do with it). The randomizing of perks can also lead to many battles just taking forever due to all of the ability and attack defenses, which wouldn't be an issue if the level scaling actually felt like it was working properly and your weapon perks didn't feel completely useless. This leads to the overwhelming bloat of the equipment stats, needing to unlock their perks, becoming out leveled quickly (not sure how many times you can upgrade) and trying to maintain a proper counter to most of the proofs just to keep fights from becoming four minute slogs.

Conquest fights are a major time sink throughout the game, with the entire second act basically preparing you for the process in the third act. The required attack and defense stats needed to effectively survive the end game (I cannot image the grind needed back when it was 10 stages, bad enough now with farming the coins needed to buy fort upgrades and upgrade warchiefs) will take up the bulk of your playthrough. It wouldn't be as terrible if there was something else to break up the routine, but there isn't. There is no story (probably a blessing given how shallow it was in the second act), there is no side content (unless you buy the DLC, which boils down to a story on the levels of Rings of Power (Blade of Galadriel) and a time attack mode to conquering a new region (Desolation of Mordor)), and the crippling feeling of a mobile game with how repetitive it all gets. I wouldn't be as tough on it if the combat issues and movement problems weren't compounded so much during the attack and defense segments, when you can be facing upwards of four or five enemy special orcs with their proofs conflicting with each other and making basic movement a nightmare (or leaving you unable to target an ally who is bleeding to death right at your feet due to the Olog captain standing behind him with the bigger hit box).

This is basically what the game is: a tutorial to conquests and then the conquest defense arc. If you enjoy awkward combat and have no interest in the loose liberty of the story, you might find some enjoyment in making up stories with what the Nemesis system throws at you. I cannot recommend this game even with that, because eventually the sameness of the encounters and how much the controls can fight back at you at times sets in, and you look at how many more orcs you are expected to capture, and realize there are other games out there that will respect your time more. Even on a sale, I can't recommend it. Not all of the games in your backlog need to be finished.

Honestly what a fun experience. The story was excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, Talion is absolutely my GOAT. The gameplay was satisfying. There is so much fresh content I was still finding new things and interactions at the 100 hour mark.
Replayability is questionable to me, that being said there was so much to do in the first run I can't be mad. It took me about 70 hours to 100% the save. (Not counting achievements, maybe another time). The combat felt good, though sometimes frustrating by the admittedly inconsistent notifications and at times unresponsiveness. Not something I felt in the first game at any point, but maybe that's a skill issue on my part.
Overall 9/10, if you like RPGs, Lord of the Rings, or hack and slash. You really should get your hands on this game. Sale or no sale. Worth it.

Love the game, combat can get dull at times but with each nemesis having different weaknesses it changes the game-play. 10/10 would recommend, I wish there were more games that implemented the nemesis system.

An improvement on the first game that takes the nemesis system and expands on it bringing more variables for enemies that you have to adapt and overcome. The game follows the loop of getting gear, dominating orcs, levelling them and yourself and attacking/defending forts. The orc tribes are unique and offer different bonuses. You can come across hacked edited orcs in online but there are ways to counter them (wrathgiver build). The 2 main DLCs have you playing as 2 different characters each with their own skill tree and challenges. I recommend getting it on sale with all content.

Entertaining combat, nice lore for fans of Lord of the Rings. The nemesis system is still an amazing thing.

Has a bug where when gaining a training order for sending an orc to the garrison, you can no longer send any orcs to the garrison. Forever. They are aware of this bug and have never fixed it. Completely game breaking.

Best game ever, nemesis system is amazing, I never tire to return and play this game.

Grind gets a little difficult if you want to see the post game ending, but the nemesis system and story are top notch.

Best "creature collector" game I ever played. The post end game content was a really pleasant bonus surprise.

The game has fun combat and somewhat decent graphics, but it is extremely repetitive in my opinion. Even as a fan of LOTR I didn't enjoy this game much.