Middle Earth: Shadow of War
Building on the foundations of Shadow of Mordor, Middle Earth: Shadow of War spun a vast net of ideas and created an open-world setting brimming with imagination true to Tolkien’s works. It’s a great game that meshes together elements of stealth, action, and strategy to create an engaging experience. The Nemesis system works wonders and crafts personal metanarratives that will stay with you long after the credits roll and also help in removing mundanity from the whole affair.
It’s a pretty fun game, to begin with, and building your army of Orc captains while navigating the many challenges it throws with you can be almost addicting as you get stronger with each battle. But there eventually comes a point where it all devolves into a grind, practically forcing you to buy into the microtransaction economy. And even if you do that, the mechanics run out of juice in the face of an extraneously long runtime – making things bad in that scenario as well.
