Topic: Shadow of Mordor: A Mean-spirited, maybe self-aware game

[Evan_B]

Tl;dr What are your thoughts on the Middle Earth duology? I detail some of the ways I find the game to be mean-spirited, though I’m hoping the developers were actually self-aware enough to notice how unhinged their protagonist is.

I’m about six-ish hours into Shadow of Mordor, which was recently released on the Nintendo Switch 2 in a duology package(and had a 50% discount for preordering: 35 dollars, what a steal!). As someone with an affinity for Tolkien’s works and a vague curiosity about video game adaptations of the legendarium, I was too tempted by the general public’s affection for the Nemesis system to resist snagging these games. One might say I was tempted by the power of the One Ring… I figured I’d put this in General Gaming considering it’s not a Switch 2 exclusive, per se. I’m also ascribing to the Khushrenada ethos that “not everything needs to be added to an all-encompassing general thread.”

A few things in particular stand out to me about the experience so far, which even in the span of an additional hour or so of play have developed a bit more. First things first, this game is extremely “2010s Parkour-coded,” reminding me of the slog that was Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag (the only Assassin’s Creed game I’ve ever played, so yes, I know I am biased) in how the movement system operates. Black Flag felt a bit more restricted in the way some of its scripted missions allowed you to use parkour and how the parkour system worked with (or rather, butted-up against) nature, and the way Shadow of Mordor’s environments are structured feels a bit more free: mind you, there’s very little natural vertical structures and the game pretty much exclusively uses plateau cliff faces, but the amount of strongholds and ruins that pepper the landscape makes parkour feel like an always-accessible tool. With that said, it is somewhat surprising how freely you can move as a Ranger. Stealth and parkour really feel like integral elements that take cues from the aforementioned stealth action game and the momentum built upon the success of Warner Bros.’ other big video game adaptation of the time: the Arkham trilogy. At least, that’s what I’ve picked up from some stories from the game’s development. I need to get around to the Arkham trilogy at some point.

Second, the other aspect that echoes that 2010 game design is the combat. For a game so heavily weighted on combat, it doesn’t make a great first impression- you’re essentially mashing your attack input until you knock down an enemy and then switching to another enemy, considering the takedown mechanic and animation take a bit too long to execute in combat. This first impression is somewhat inaccurate, however, as a quick glance at the upgrade screen reveals the myriad input methods you can layer into combat. Executions reward your focus on mashing attack and reacting to parry opportunities, different forms of stuns and AoE attacks enter the fold, and finally, options for interacting with the Nemesis system reveal themselves to you. These upgrades are rewards for following the main narrative missions, so despite the game’s open world design, you are encouraged to try sticking to a main path. Given the play estimates featured on certain aggregate sites, the game doesn’t suffer too much from open-world bloat.

Which is perhaps good, because… well, outside of “hunting and gathering” side missions, combat is really the only thing this game has to offer. Sure, there’s stealth, timed, and stamina-focused side-missions that add a bit of variety to the mix, but it’s not enough variety to feel substantial, and it’s all in service of highlighting the various messed-up things you can do to Orcs and Uruks. This leads me to my main point, which is that this game is quite mean-spirited. You’re goring enemies on the regular, terrifying them with fire, mounted beasts, or “brutalize” prompts, and probing their minds for valuable intel (or branding them, a mechanic I’ve yet to unlock). The game is wont to focus on these actions, which are flashy and brutal in their design, and rewards you for engaging in such behavior. You can explode heads, for goodness sake. It makes me wonder if the developers were fully cognizant of how evil their protagonist is being portrayed. I’m assuming they do, seeing as the sequel tackles some ideas and gameplay mechanics related to power dynamics that feel like a further extension of moral corruption present here. I don’t know if I feel Tallion’s quest for vengeance justifies his wonton slaughter of Orcs, or if I’m supposed to take glee in watching him do so, but the more brutal the means of execution become, the more I feel that maybe this is a deliberate choice to signify how revenge is never truly satiated. I believe Celebrimbor himself says something similar, and this perhaps speaks to the placement of the game within the timeline of Tolkien’s legendarium.

Speaking of bad segues, this game’s most legendary element is most obviously the Nemesis system, and… yup. I get it. While I do feel this genuinely novel concept is somewhat hindered by the way encounters spawn and advance through time, I can’t help but be charmed by its execution. The first time I had an orc whose head I had cleaved come back with a gnarly battle mask and some nasty flavor text, I was smitten. I don’t know to what extent I’ll be able to push the limits of the system in this first game (as I still haven’t unlocked branding and I know the sequel has even more expansive interactions) but it’s novel enough in this smaller-scale environment that it makes coming across new nemeses continually surprising and enjoyable- even if the end result tends to feel fairly one-note.

I’m curious if others have experienced these games and what their thoughts might be. To boil it down to some specific talking points, did anyone find their experience to be similar or unlike the following…?

• Simplistic combat with many options but rarely significant outcomes
• Free, 2010s-era movement that emphasizes stealth
• Revenge… bad?
• Fun recurring Nemeses as the core conceit

[broodwars]

Never got around to playing my Copy of Shadow of War (which, from what I've heard of the sequel and its many post-release patches, was probably a good thing), but I did play all the way through Shadow of Mordor. Annoyingly, it's a game that some day I should go back to and Platinum, as I only had 2 trophies left in that game and both of them are annoying (doing a kill-streak while on the cat mounts and raising a non-story goblin from grunt all the way to Chieftan and then killing him).

I remember liking Shadow of Mordor but not loving it. At the time, Assassin's Creed was just starting its long directionless period that started with AC 3, and this was a decent enough "one of those" with Batman Arkham combat. At the same time, the Nemesis system was really the only thing altogether notable about it, so once you saw all its tricks there really wasn't anything left over the course of a rather long game.

[Khushrenada]

I’m also ascribing to the Khushrenada ethos that “not everything needs to be added to an all-encompassing general thread.”

I need to get around to the Arkham trilogy at some point.

Same. Kept hoping the games would be ported to Switch and then I waited until I could get it at a low price I wanted which was just a couple months ago. Now to just actually play them. Less concerned with the third game but the first two are supposed to be pretty good.

As someone with an affinity for Tolkien’s works

Personally, I've just never really been that big into the Middle Earth scene. I read The Hobbit and then followed that up by reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy while in High School and grade 9. That was the time I was really into trying to read all sorts of classics in literature and knew they were considered great works. They were a different experience from other things I'd read at that point in time but I found they could alternate between being really engaging and being kind of boring and pushing myself to get through some portions. With the Lord of the Rings, I found the Frodo, Sam, Gollum parts more engaging than the Pippin, Merry, Aragorn stuff once the party splits up. I felt the ending of the Frodo portion at Mount Doom nailed it. Was less concerned about Aragorn's ending and his taking of the throne. Never re-read any of the books. Tried The Silmarillion but bounced off of that after a couple chapters. Just seemed to be all the passages I didn't care for in LotR with lore full of all sorts of names I didn't recognize or care about and nothing compelling to keep me going. It was very soon after that the movies then came out but I wasn't the cinephile I am now (I still hadn't even seen any of the Star Wars movies at this point in time) and didn't get around to watching them until around 2012, I think. I remember the place I was living in at the time and know I saw them a before The Hobbit movies came out so that seems right to me. Overall, I thought they were good adaptations and did quite well in streamlining the story and I was better able to see and understand the reasons why people consider it a bit of a World War 2 allegory or at least the allusions one could make between the two. But they were also kind of silly too me as well and hard to take that seriously. Particularly The Two Towers first half with all the running around done by the characters and the amount of enemies this small group can slay and are just seemingly unstoppable no matter the odds. I was less bothered by the additions and and the expanding of the story for The Hobbit trilogy perhaps in part of not being that attached to the source material. In fact, it was part of The Hobbit movies that I have ever seen a second time. They were playing on TV a few years later and checked in for the portion of the meeting of Smaug and on to his demise but then moved on. Have never rewatched the LotR films but maybe someday. That is my engagement with Tolkien's works. I've never really paid much attention to Middle Earth video games or played any of them. As such, this game wasn't on my radar. So, I'm not going to have much to offer this thread beyond this post.

That said, I'll still read anything you write about on these forums even if the topic isn't a big interest to me. It gets me to expand my knowledge of other games my taste in games may overlook or not know anything about. On that note,

You’re goring enemies on the regular, terrifying them with fire, mounted beasts, or “brutalize” prompts, and probing their minds for valuable intel (or branding them, a mechanic I’ve yet to unlock). The game is wont to focus on these actions, which are flashy and brutal in their design, and rewards you for engaging in such behavior. You can explode heads, for goodness sake.

That information right there tells me these are a couple games I'll never play. The old ultraviolence is just not something that appeals to me. It's sort of like how horror movies are my least favorite genre of film (or at least tied with documentaries for that rank). I just hate how horror movies will try to play some weird morality about character deaths as though a person being kind of vain or a jerk or having sex justifies them getting mutilated and suffering a horrible death. Try killing someone for that in real life and see how it goes in court. On top of that, when you have stuff that involves magic or the supernatural, there's so many questions it will bring up that are unanswered and silly logic that will make it hard for me to care or take seriously and just further adds to the impression that it's just about being awful to people. Going back to the slasher style picture, I'm just not thrilled by seeing the killer hunt and kill someone. Likewise, I'm not really interested in then playing like one in a videogame either. Just not my scene.

[Evan_B]

Your address of horror as a genre is valid and I don’t love the “gorn” subgenre, myself. While I do find myself drawn to psychological or “elevated” horror a bit more (and o enjoyed back when Scream’s take on the genre had a bit more teeth to it than the hammy series it has become), I generally have an issue with more mean-spirited works as a whole. Not to say they lack merit and I won’t hate on anyone’s tastes in particular, but especially in a game such as this where one faction is reduced to subhuman and therefore worthy of such horrid fates, I find myself questioning the ethos of the developers. I really am hoping that this story is one of reflection and thematic growth, but in an era when Assassin’s Creed and other games were perfectly fine with killing vast numbers of perceived baddies (and the gaming space being filled with largely vapid narratives about resistance and the like), I’m preparing to be disappointed. I would hope that Tolkien’s address of good and evil would help elevate this game to a more contemplative position on vengeance and evil, but it’s looking unlikely.