Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s most famous work, although greatly diverging from it in tone and message, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is a game that fails to harness its own potential. While its main story is shallow, repetitive, and contrived (hopeless both in its suffocating atmosphere and overall quality), when it comes to gameplay, the game actually presents a great new idea, even if it sabotages it at every turn.

Its 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 alongside his wife and son. Talion, however, is resurrected when the wraith of a mysterious elf possesses his body, raising him up from the dead.

Talion’s journey is marked by his desire for revenge. He intends to kill his three murderers – Sauron’s Hand, Tower, and Hammer – and then finally depart to be with his family. However, he’s also compelled to help the elven spirit discover his own identity – yes, the wraith suffers from amnesia because videogames – and save the remaining rangers who resist Sauron in the region.

First, we must address the oliphaunt in the room. Shadow of Mordor has a gritty setting and a story about bloodlust, where we’re just beheading and brutalizing Orcs for most of the runtime. The sense of wonder, whimsy, and magic of Middle-Earth is nowhere to be found here: we’re stuck in Mordor and its barren, harsh wasteland. But the issue here is not the sheer amount of violence; it’s its method and result that go most against the spirit of Tolkien’s original work. Take the Wraith’s power, for example, which allows Talion to brand orcs and control their minds: through it, we’re using the power of the enemy, the power to control and dominate, against them. It’s what Boromir, Denethor, and all the most ill-advised characters in the original trilogy always desired to do. And we keep succeeding. This is the crux of the matter: Talion keeps getting more powerful and more violent and… he keeps butchering his enemies. By the time the game is over, it doesn’t matter if Talion succeeds or fails in his quest to avenge his family because he will have nonetheless eliminated hundreds and hundreds of Orcs in Mordor alone, making the world a much better place just for that. In other words, in Shadow of Mordor, wielding dark power… brings results.

But how does the game stand on its own heretical figurative feet, stripped of the need to adhere to the spirit of the source material? Well, during its first hours at least, Shadow of Mordor is effective in capturing our attention, as it skillfully combines tutorials with character development. One of the first missions, for example, demonstrates Talion’s affection toward his wife while teaching us the basic stealth commands by giving us the simple goal of “Stealth kiss your wife.” Similarly, combat mechanics are presented while the ranger trains his son. This means that, when the fateful massacre happens, we’re able to share the protagonist’s pain and understand the scope of his hatred.

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

The plot surrounding the wraith is built to serve as a direct link with The Lord of the Rings, as it involves the creation of the Rings of Power while making a parallel between the wraith’s journey and Talion’s. The problem is that the narrative seems much more interested in the elf than the guardian, as Talion is forgotten for much of the game: after the introduction, he just keeps killing random orcs and becoming powerful without any aspect of his personality being explored. We discover 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 so Talion, in turn, now kills Orcs. It’s that simple.

The wraith’s storyline is far from being more complex, however. First, it’s presented through an absurd and contrived structure, with his memories being “triggered” by specific objects found in certain missions – and these memories are obviously recovered in chronological order and fragmented into the exact number of existing objects. Because sure, why not? 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 already revealed the elf’s name before launch, ignoring that such information is kept hidden for various missions.

However, even those who enter the Wraith’s story without any prior knowledge of Tolkien’s work – someone who doesn’t know who rings a dong dillo, who rings a dong, who hops along, who fals lal the willow – will find severe problems in it: as it closely resembles Talion’s journey, but is told later, the elf’s backstory is just, well, more of the same. It feels redundant. It doesn’t create any kind of conflict with the protagonist or make Talion’s journey more complex or more tragic or more anything really. Evil beings ruined the elf’s life, and now evil beings ruined Talion’s lif,e and they’re both together butchering evil beings. It’s that simple.

But Shadow of Mordor‘s narrative problems don’t stop at repetition. The wizard Saruman, for example, makes a brief appearance during the small climax of one mission, but after its completion, he’s no longer mentioned. This makes his appearance feel unearned to fans of the source material, and just random and meaningless to those unfamiliar with the character, those who don’t know who’s the River-woman’s daughter, slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water. And speaking of fascinating women, the warrior Lithariel, who emerges as a strong female character at first, 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 at the end, when it makes the final battle, the most climactic confrontation in the entire story… a simple sequence of quick-time events. And then goes on to betray what the protagonist stands for, making Talion delay one of the most fundamental parts of his plan just to leave a door open for a direct sequel.

Moving to the gameplay, 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, as now they have their own names and unique weaknesses, fears, and attributes. It’s also possible to identify if they are fighting over the same territory or protecting each other.

The greatest strength of the Nemesis system is that it turns the game’s universe dynamic, making these minor 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 stand still and admire the dulls browns and bland greys of the environment. It also contextualizes an eventual defeat in battle, as the Orcs remember that they killed Talion and are even promoted by the feat. In other words, it creates small stories surrounding the Orcs that help to make them more memorable foes.

The main problem is that we’re hardly encouraged to interact with it. On paper, it’s excellent: we 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. In practice, however, this system is sabotaged by the game’s combat system.

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 battle. In the Arkham games, these combat mechanics are there to show Batman’s superiority in melee combat: through invincible counterattacks triggered by a simple push of a button, the goal in those games is to defeat as many enemies as possible while taking as little damage as possible, so as not to interrupt the ever-growing combo. It’s a system designed to provide an intoxicating power fantasy.

But applying it to Shadow of Mordor is a disaster, as it makes Talion as invincible as Batman, while the Nemesis system wanted us to take the time to learn about our enemies and eventually even fail while battling them. However, since here most enemies and bosses fall to simple counterattacks, and we don’t take damage easily, why would we bother to look for these orcs’ fears and weaknesses? Here, we fear no elder black! Heed no hoary willow! For there’s a core mechanic in place that greatly diminishes the chances of Talion dying and we finding out that the game even reacts to such an event.

There are some rare bosses immune to counterattacks, but they can still be easily dealt with using stealth (it’s a pity, however, that we never get to stealth kiss the orcs, only Talion’s wife. Great missed opportunity here for perverts). Regarding stealth, Shadow of Mordor also copies the Arkham series and Assassin’s Creed, presenting its own version of the obligatory “Eagle Vision”, recontextualizing it 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 us from the main quest; the map is divided into quadrants that can be unlocked after climbing specific towers; and so on. Even the parkour animations look strikingly similar at times.

In the end, with a problematic, disappointing story and contradicting mechanics, Shadow of Mordor will most likely only be remembered for introducing a system that other games will make much better use of in the future. That is, if they don’t patent the Nemesis system and keep it locked away forever, even after the studio is shut down. But this will never happen, right? No, we’re in the good timeline, I’m sure of it. So, let us sing together! Of sun, stars, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather, light on the budding leaf, dew on the feather, wind on the open hill, bells on the heather, reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water: Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!

March 26, 2025.

Review originally published in Portuguese on February 09, 2016.