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Middle-earth: Shadow of War: First Gameplay Video

Falchion

Member
I have a feeling these big battles are going to be a nonstop stream of 'a new challenger has appeared!'. That's fine, just funny it's like a bunch of Super Smash Bros character entrances.
 

Kazuhira

Member
Not fully convinced yet,i like the idea of more specific roles for your allies and how the nemesis system impacts on them but the gameplay felt scripted for the most part IMO.
Visually,it looks just like SoM with a few improvements here and there.
Anyway,i will keep it on my radar but i need to see more before reaching a conclusion.
 
Very impressed by this, but will keep my expectation in check. Don't know how many of these fortress assaults are in the game, it looks like there will be quite a lot of them on the world map, the first 3 or 4 will be cool, but may start getting stale after that, same as how I felt with the first game (still loved what the game tried to do though).

The gamplayl reveal reminded me of the Kingdom Under Fire II trailer from 8 years ago (and the game is still not out!!)
 
That was an amazing reveal. Shadow of Mordor was close to an arcade game and this just looked like that turned up a few notches.

I wouldn't look into this for deep combat, rpg or a story. It's going to be dumb fun just messing around.
 

Ashtar

Member
I do hope that the game adapts to you eg if you always stealth kill your enemies it makes them more likely to develop immunity and so on to up the challenge
 
Heard the same "scripted" comments about the last game during it's reveal, but Nemesis is the real deal. The problem was the rest of the game felt like discount Ubisoft. This is what the sequel needed. A doubling down on nemesis, and the fixing of the open world + quests. Half way there, by the looks of it.
 
I loved the original game, and from this game play trailer they kept what worked and dialed everything to a 100! It seems that they were addressing some of the criticism of the original game as well. I am cautiously optimistic about it.
 
I am kind of surprised how the game still seems to have some of that animation jank that I attributed in the first one to being cross gen. The Ranger's face looks kind of worse than the first too. That said, there's a lot of enemies on screen and a lot going on and the Orcs look great.
 
Do you think the game will make it explicit that Talion and Celebrimbor are not good people, at least given the context of the ethics of Middle-Earth? I think if they go too far in treating them as 'baddasses' it kind of spoils the whole point of the LotR canon.
 

Jocund

Member
Do you think the game will make it explicit that Talion and Celebrimbor are not good people, at least given the context of the ethics of Middle-Earth? I think if they go too far in treating them as 'baddasses' it kind of spoils the whole point of the LotR canon.
I think at this point it's fair to say they do nooooooot care about the LotR canon. Unfortunately
 
Do you think the game will make it explicit that Talion and Celebrimbor are not good people, at least given the context of the ethics of Middle-Earth? I think if they go too far in treating them as 'baddasses' it kind of spoils the whole point of the LotR canon.
Isn't the premise here that Celebrimbor & Talion forge a new ring of power and use it to control armies of Orcs to fight the armies of Mordor? Somehow I don't think that's destined to end well.

Not that I expect complete purity to canon, but I'd imagine the whole "power corrupts" thing will end up becoming the core conflict. And this is a game that loves to give the player power.
 
I think at this point it's fair to say they do nooooooot care about the LotR canon. Unfortunately

I don't mean in terms of like creating new locations or creatures or such, that's creative license. I would like them though to do something that's gets into the themes of the books. I mean, it's not hard to do games where the protagonist is not framed as heroic; look at Spec Ops or the Last of Us.

Isn't the premise here that Celebrimbor & Talion forge a new ring of power and uses it to create armies of Orcs to fight the armies of Mordor? Somehow I don't think that's destined to end well.

Yeah, unless they, as Rorie suggested on the Giant Bomb vid, Inglorious Basterds it and end up completely diverging from LotR lore. Which would be crazy but probably more interesting than just setting up the Fellowship of the Ring. I do think if it does something internal to the story that shows that the quest for power, regardless of the reason, inevitably leads to suffering and damnation, I think it could work.
 

zoukka

Member
Looked way too scripted and bombastic for my taste. I imagine those instakill animations and special effects will grow old within hours or starting the game.
 

Spaghetti

Member
This game may be the embodiment of "everybody was voiced by Troy Baker".

Not only is he the lead, but I'm pretty sure he was playing the crazy fire Orc too. It was like only a few notches off his Arkham Origins Joker.
 

Sorc3r3r

Member
The badassery given to the main character is so over the top that is laughable from one side and embarrassing from the other.

I don't know if can still enjoy using such kind of protagonist.

Let's see if the game mechanics are just gimmicks or they'll have an actual weight in the game.

The first one if I remember correctly falls apart with all its nemesis system in the late game.
 

Neolombax

Member
Not really feeling it...Everything seems upgraded but nothing about it was exciting to me. Still going to follow this game, see how it turns out.
 

Nordicus

Member
Heard the same "scripted" comments about the last game during it's reveal, but Nemesis is the real deal.
Yup, I remember this as well, and even thinking it myself.

If this is a similar situation, all things will be proven to be legit, there might be even more to them than we were shown, but that doesn't stop the cracks in the Nemesis system showing before the end of a playthrough
 

Permanently A

Junior Member
First impressions, the graphics are not very impressive. Not a big deal but surprisingly poor and looks worse than Mordor in some respects

The main character is still OP as fuck. It seems like there's no more combo meter and you can always execute??? The fact that you are so OP makes everything else feel trivial. Oh you stormed the gates with your giant army but your army didn't really do shit, it was all you climbing over the wall and killing everyone. Would much prefer if your army would actually be a big part of the gameplay.

Nemesis system is pretty curious here, not much else to say beyond I wonder what it will really play out like, it seemed very scripted. They purport millions of different storylines but I wonder how different the variations will truly be. It would be damn cool if your inside man could turn coat in the middle of the mission and fuck things up for you. The more variety to these scenarios the better.

I'm hoping for the best but keeping my expectations in check.
 
First impressions, the graphics are not very impressive. Not a big deal but surprisingly poor and looks worse than Mordor in some respects

The main character is still OP as fuck. It seems like there's no more combo meter and you can always execute??? The fact that you are so OP makes everything else feel trivial. Oh you stormed the gates with your giant army but your army didn't really do shit, it was all you climbing over the wall and killing everyone. Would much prefer if your army would actually be a big part of the gameplay.

Nemesis system is pretty curious here, not much else to say beyond I wonder what it will really play out like, it seemed very scripted. They purport millions of different storylines but I wonder how different the variations will truly be. It would be damn cool if your inside man could turn coat in the middle of the mission and fuck things up for you. The more variety to these scenarios the better.

I'm hoping for the best but keeping my expectations in check.

Its alpha, theres no post processing applied. Also he's overpowered only because hes 10 times the level above.
 

Remmy2112

Member
The badassery given to the main character is so over the top that is laughable from one side and embarrassing from the other.

I don't know if can still enjoy using such kind of protagonist.

Let's see if the game mechanics are just gimmicks or they'll have an actual weight in the game.

The first one if I remember correctly falls apart with all its nemesis system in the late game.

Also for this gameplay demo they seemed to give the player unlimited on command executions and other one hit kills. In the first game in order to pull those off it used a system similar to the Batman: Arkham games, where you had to build up an uninterrupted combo of hits in order to eliminate one guy from the battle, then you had to get another combo chain to use it again and so on and so forth.

For this demo I guess they wanted to show full badassery so it was on command.
 
As a big Dynasty Warriors fans that always wished they'd do a lot more with the Empire spinoffs, and also with those features in the main story campaigns, a lot of this new 'war' or 'army' features look awesome.

Some of the badassery looks borderline silly but, I mean, I have that complaint elsewhere too lol

Anyhow, thought the trailer looked awesome. Pretty interested in this game now. Could see myself sinking quite a lot of time into it if I get a few hours into it and sort of 'hooked' to the personal story campaign (and all the relationships, details) that begin to form.
 

belvedere

Junior Butler
The game engine doesn't look drastically different so I guess there's hope that the Pro version will retain its native 4k presentation?
 

G-Bus

Banned
Ehhhh. .

Enjoyed the first one quite a bit. I like what they're doing with the nemesis system. Sounds really cool.

Ill wait for a video where buddy isn't all OP and just performing executions. pretty much took everyone out himself. Why have an army to control if they ain't doing shit other than taking some aggro.
 

Kumquat

Member
Not to be a negative Nancy or anything but the boss fight mostly feels scripted. Like, not when he's killing the minions but it seemed like there was no control for most of that battle. I just don't feel it is legit gameplay. I hope I'm wrong but I have been much more skeptical of hype since One Man's Lie.
 

LexW

Neo Member
Not to be a negative Nancy or anything but the boss fight mostly feels scripted. Like, not when he's killing the minions but it seemed like there was no control for most of that battle. I just don't feel it is legit gameplay. I hope I'm wrong but I have been much more skeptical of hype since One Man's Lie.

Given it's alpha, it's probably semi-scripted, but having played Shadow of Mordor recently, absolutely nothing in the trailer seemed particularly outlandish or unlikely to work. On the contrary, this all seemed very plausible.

I presume, given the comparison to No Man's Sky, you never played SoM? Not sure why you'd be so skeptical otherwise.
 
Games out in 5 months. It's not Alpha. It's done. Content complete. That said, if they follow the same philosophy as the first we'll have dozens if not hundreds of hours of footage by August. It's been 3 years since the first game, to build on an already impressive ai system.

I'd be more skeptical on if they've upped the open world parts, the story parts, and the end game.
 

TheFlow

Banned
Games out in 5 months. It's not Alpha. It's done. Content complete. That said, if they follow the same philosophy as the first we'll have dozens if not hundreds of hours of footage by August. It's been 3 years since the first game, to build on an already impressive ai system.

I'd be more skeptical on if they've upped the open world parts, the story parts, and the end game.

yea. I have no doubt the gameplay and nemesis system will be amazing. just improve the open world design and activities you can do.
 

LexW

Neo Member
Games out in 5 months. It's not Alpha. It's done. Content complete. That said, if they follow the same philosophy as the first we'll have dozens if not hundreds of hours of footage by August. It's been 3 years since the first game, to build on an already impressive ai system.

I'd be more skeptical on if they've upped the open world parts, the story parts, and the end game.

The trailer specifically calls it alpha, it's fine if you want to call them liars, but that's what it says.
 
Piss and moan about developers constantly and always prioritizing pretty resolutions and amazing textures over inventive game systems and AI. Game finally does the latter.

Piss and moan about that.

I think it's great that they're putting the bulk of the work into making sure the systems have depth.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
I'm not sure what I expected from a Shadow of Mordor sequel, but this isn't it. I strongly dislike the huge battle arena stuff.
 

Mifec

Member
Piss and moan about developers constantly and always prioritizing pretty resolutions and amazing textures over inventive game systems and AI. Game finally does the latter.

Piss and moan about that.

I think it's great that they're putting the bulk of the work into making sure the systems have depth.

But the combat is the same and has zero depth.

Everything else they presented is fine though.
 

Ho_su

Neo Member
Flamethrowers and dragons in Middle Earth?

OMG.

Middle Earth have Tanks Dragons... No, im not joking.

fall_of_gondolin_by_roger_garland.jpg
 
But the combat is the same and has zero depth.

Everything else they presented is fine though.

To make a comparison, the new Zeldas combat is very basic as well, zero depth. That doesnt stop it from being fun.

Shadow of Wars combat looks fun in that sense.
 

Kumquat

Member
Given it's alpha, it's probably semi-scripted, but having played Shadow of Mordor recently, absolutely nothing in the trailer seemed particularly outlandish or unlikely to work. On the contrary, this all seemed very plausible.

I presume, given the comparison to No Man's Sky, you never played SoM? Not sure why you'd be so skeptical otherwise.

I have not played it and I am willing to be proven wrong. I will be incredibly happy if I am. It looked really cool but the boss fight, the dude helping with the arrow, etc, most of that seemed scripted or a QTE. Again, would love to be wrong.
 
I have not played it and I am willing to be proven wrong. I will be incredibly happy if I am. It looked really cool but the boss fight, the dude helping with the arrow, etc, most of that seemed scripted or a QTE. Again, would love to be wrong.

Both times that happened, the arrow or the mounted rider, the player was about to die. Chances are its simply a cheat death system- if the player is about to die, and theres an officer nearby, then no matter what it will trigger that officer coming in to save you. Like I doubt the guy who shot the arrow was on that tower, but since he was nearby, the game simply spawned him on there when the player character triggered a death sequence.

Now the question is, what are the limitations of it? Do the orcs you control have to be a certain level? Have a certain trait?

Thats not to say that those moments werent scripted for the purposes of the gameplay- they most definitely were set up to "pop". But seeing what Shadow of Mordor showed us, what was shown in the trailer definitely isnt farfetched. They already have a basic concept in SoM, afterall.
 

ryseing

Member
Piss and moan about developers constantly and always prioritizing pretty resolutions and amazing textures over inventive game systems and AI. Game finally does the latter.

Piss and moan about that.

I think it's great that they're putting the bulk of the work into making sure the systems have depth.

Agreed. I'm glad they chose scale over graphics. A bit more color in the environments wouldn't hurt but the region showed was in Mordor so I wouldn't expect greenery.

And Monolith has heard the complaints about difficulty y'all. This demo pretty clearly had god mode on.
 
Agreed. I'm glad they chose scale over graphics. A bit more color in the environments wouldn't hurt but the region showed was in Mordor so I wouldn't expect greenery.

And Monolith has heard the complaints about difficulty y'all. This demo pretty clearly had god mode on.

Just give me very hard mode.
 
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