Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s most famous work, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is a game that fails to harness its own potential. While the case for its main story is hopeless, being shallow and very repetitive, when it comes to gameplay it actually presents a great new idea, but keeps sabotaging it with systems that enter in conflict with each other.

Shadow of Mordor’s story takes place between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, when Sauron regains control of Mordor, expelling the men of Gondor from the region. The protagonist is Talion, a ranger who was guarding the gates of Mordor when Sauron’s forces stormed the place, murdering him along with his family. Talion, however, is resurrected when the spirit of a mysterious elf possesses his body and raises him up from the dead.

Talion’s journey is marked by his desire for revenge. He wants to kill his tormentors – Sauron’s Hand, Tower, and Hammer – and then finally depart to be with his family. But he must also help the elven spirit discover his own identity – yes, the spirit suffers from amnesia – and save the remaining rangers that continue to resist Sauron in the region.

Shadow of Mordor is extremely effective in capturing player attention during its first hours, as it combines tutorials with character development. One of the first missions, for example, demonstrates the affection Talion feels for his wife while teaching the player the basic stealth commands by putting as the goal “Stealth kiss your wife.” Similarly, combat mechanics are presented while the protagonist trains his son. This means that, when the fateful massacre happens, the player is able to share the protagonist’s pain and understand the scope of his hatred.

The same, however, cannot be said about the elf accompanying Talion. The game’s second act no longer develops the ranger but focuses only on revealing the spirit’s past through various flashbacks. Talion’s story, then, is set aside for an extremely similar one, as the elf is also seeking revenge.

The plot surrounding the elf is built to serve as a link with The Lord of the Rings, as it involves the creation of the Rings of Power while making a parallel between the journey of the mysterious character and that of the protagonist. The problem is that the writer, Christian Cantamessa (Red Dead Redemption), seems much more interested in the elf than in the guardian. Talion is abandoned for much of the game: after the introduction, the narrative is content with just placing him killing random orcs and making him powerful without exploring any aspect of his personality. The player discovers absolutely nothing new about the ranger throughout the game and Talion himself is not faced with any conflict that tests his beliefs and motivations: orcs have killed his family and he, in turn, kills orcs. It’s that simple.

The story of the elven spirit is far from being more complex though. Firstly, it is presented through an artificial and absurd structure: the spirit’s memories are “triggered” by specific objects found in certain missions – and these memories are obviously recovered in chronological order, besides being fragmented on the exact number of existing objects. Second, the whole mystery surrounding the elf’s identity is quickly deduced by any fan of Tolkien’s work, which makes the suspense around it tiresome – and it doesn’t help that the game’s marketing campaign has revealed the name of the elf, ignoring that such information is kept hidden for various missions. However, even those who enter the story without any prior knowledge will find problems: as it closely resembles Talion’s journey, but is told later, the elf’s backstory is just repetition. It doesn’t create any kind of conflict with the protagonist or something of the sort. Evil beings ruined Talion’s life and evil beings ruined the elf’s life. That’s it.

Shadow of Mordor‘s narrative problems don’t stop there, however. The wizard Saruman, for example, makes a brief appearance at the small climax of one of the missions but, after its completion, he’s no longer mentioned. This makes his appearance feel unearned to fans of the source material, and random and meaningless to those who do not know the character beforehand. Meanwhile, the warrior Lithariel, who emerges as a strong female character at the beginning, eventually succumbs to the damsel in distress trope, being even carried on the lap by Talion at some point.

The game also commits a major crime during its climax, when it makes the final battle a rough sequence of quick-time events and even betrays what had been established so far for the protagonist, making Talion gives up one of the most important parts of his plan just to open the game for a direct sequel.

Moving to the gameplay department, Shadow of Mordor’s great gimmick is a system called “Nemesis” that makes it possible to study the orcs’ chain of command, observing the peculiarities of each captain and general. This system gives the game’s enemies some identity since now they have their own names and unique weaknesses and attributes. It’s also possible to identify if they are fighting over the same territory or protecting each other.

Consequently, the Nemesis system inserts energy into the game’s universe, making its characters interact with each other regardless of the player’s actions: orcs go to war and kill each other, modifying the power chain, even if Talion chooses to do nothing. It even contextualizes an eventual defeat in battle, as the orcs remember that they killed Talion and are even promoted by the feat. It creates small stories surrounding the orcs that help make them more memorable foes.

The main problem is that the player is not encouraged to interact with this system. In isolation, it is excellent: the player must interrogate certain enemies to find out information about some captains – whether they are vulnerable to fire or afraid of wild creatures, for example – and then hunt down these orcs, using the newfound knowledge of their weaknesses to win the fight. In practice, however, this system is sabotaged by the game’s combat system.

After all, Shadow of Mordor borrows the main mechanics of the Arkham series, that is, a system of counterattacks, combos, and finishing moves that make the protagonist a force to be reckoned with. In the Arkham games, these combat mechanics served to show Batman’s superiority in melee combat: through invincible counterattacks, the goal in that game is to defeat as many enemies as possible, taking as little damage as possible, so as not to interrupt the evergrowing combo. Applying this system to Shadow of Mordor is a disaster because it makes Talion equally invincible. And if players don’t take damage easily, why would they bother to look for an orc’s weaknesses? If they can just keep using counterattacks to avoid damage and there’s nothing in place to prevent them from abusing this system, they will leave the comfort zone. Most enemies in the game fall to counterattacks, and the very rare ones that are immune to them can be dealt with in a very simple manner by using stealth mechanics.

Regarding stealth, Shadow of Mordor also copies the Arkham series and Assassin’s Creed, presenting its own version of the “Eagle Vision”, recontextualizing around the powers of the elven spirit. With it, Talion can observe the colorful silhouette of the enemies behind structures and, after approaching them, just knock them down with the push of a button. In fact, Shadow of Mordor borrows a lot from the Ubisoft rulebook: there is a huge map filled with useless collectibles; there are a lot of minor side quests to distract the main player; the map is divided into quadrants that can be unlocked after the player climbs specific towers and observes the landscape; and so on.

With a disappointing story and problematic gameplay, Shadow of Mordor will most likely be only remembered for introducing a system that other games will use in a much better way.

October 28, 2019.

Review originally published in Portuguese on February 09, 2016.