A lot of fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal masterpiece The Lord of the Rings view the Middle-Earth games by Warner Bros. and Monolith with a lot of distaste- the primary reason for this appears to be the almost flagrant liberties that the game takes with the series’ frankly revered canon. I count myself among the number who simply has issues taking the games seriously, due to how far they skew from Tolkien’s work.
It looks like Shadow of War will continue that tradition, because speaking to Eurogamer, Warner Bros. detailed the end game of the upcoming title- and, well, it’s definitely not anything that ever happened in Lord of the Rings. Basically, the game ends with you taking over all of Mordor, driving Sauron out. You then enter an end game where you have to hold Mordor, and the fortresses within it, against Sauron’s attacks- this is presumably where the loot crate micro transactions for the game come into play as well.
Holding on to every fortress in Mordor (you need to defend it against an attack by Sauon’s forces, and retake it if you lose it to him) will eventually unlock a ‘True Ending’ for the game, which Warner Bros. claims will tie the events of these games directly into Fellowship of the Ring, the first installment in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I shudder to think what Warner Bros. may think is appropriate here to tie these games to the original story. Shadow of War launches in October for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.