Update 4-09-2018

I was a huge fan of the previous version, Shadow of Mordor and this version took it to the next level. It was improved on every single aspect so I totally recommend it. Not only to fans of the previous version, but also for people that never played the series. The story stands on itself, you won't miss much, but it deffinitely helps if you played the first, The story goes on where Shadow of Mordor ended.
All this being said, with new content and goodies also came new irritations. So I still recommend it to everyone, but there are certainly things that could have been done much better. Lets take a look at the pro's and con's.


-Camera! Seriously it is the most annoying part of this game. 70% of the time the 3rd person camera is fine, but in 30% of the times you'll be adjusting it with your right stick just to see where you want to go. This is infuriating after the third time you die because your camera was pointing in the completely wrong direction. This should be fixes ASAP in an update.

-Sometimes, thanks to the nemesis system a boss becomes almost unbeatable on your own. Especially the bosses with the No Chance perk (you don't get to have the option to deflect the final blow) are VERY hard in certain circumstances and when they are high level. If you take into consideration some bosses have caragors, spear throwers and berserkers with them while they on themselves also have accumulated strong defences and can kill you with 3 blows it can be very hard to beat them. It took me a while to figure out you have another option to kill your arch enemy and that is by sending 1-3 of your own captains to kill him. You can assist if you want. But before I figured this out, it was very hard and often irritating.


-In Shadow of Mordor, every time you got a skill point, you became stronger either way. In shadow of War you must chose your build. This means if you get a skill point you can invest it in 1 main power, which has then 2-3 sub posers. But unlike SoM you need to choose ONE of the subpowers, so you can't have them all. For some that may be intruiging, but I miss the feeling of becoming all powerfull like you had in SoM. In Shadow of War you'll sometimes change your subpowers to meet the challenge in front of you (like a nemessis with very specific defences). I simply find that annoying and wish it was like SoM: every skill point accumulates your strength.

-I'll combine my final two irritations: Cut scenes and targetting. Every time a captain enters the fray, a cutscene starts his introduction. This is in the midlle of the fight, where the camera turns towards him, and stays on him after the intro. This was awesome in SoM, but in SoW you will face many captains at the same time, many times! Now without a targetting system (Come ON, this can not be hard to implement!!!) you will constantly lose focus on the boss you where fighting. You will also die because of this or captains will manage to escape because of this, and your own captains will die during sieges because of this. A targetting system that holds your boss during cut scenes) would solve all this instantly... This is without a doubt the real negative in this game.

Now the pro's!


+ Story. Excellent addition to SoM story and for example the movies. Especially the story of Shelob got me intruiged. Very well done again and I can't wait for the DLC stories! Only downside: it was a bit short, they tried to dragg it along with the 10 stage shadow wars, but take those away and it's pretty short.

+ Orc duels. A very cool addition is to have your orcs fight vs enemy orcs in the arena. Especially since you can train your own orcs to a certain degree. I honestly had a lot of fun cheering for my favorite hand made Olog fighting other captains! (You can't intervene a duel, so all you can do is spectate)

+ Training your orcs. You can train your orcs by giving them missions so they level up, or by using loot boxes that contain training orders. So you can give your captains caragors, fire weapons, resistance to certain dmg etc... It's a very cool addition especially combined to the duels in the arenas.

+ new skills like double jump, shadow dominate, ressurect fallen enemies/friends are all very nice.

+ Gear. You can collect and level legendary gear. It's a nice addition and it makes you want to collect the entire set. Upgrading gear is done by doing a certain mission, like dominate an orc from the marauder tribe, higher then lvl 30-40-55-60. And you want a full set for the extra bonusses so it's additional content, that makes you stronger.

+ Once you finished the story, or during the story if you are smart you get to play online challenges. The good old vendetta from SoM is back. (where you avenge another players death by killing his killer) but now also the online conquer mode, where you conquer another players fort is here. This is incredibly fun, AND it makes you want your own defences are top tier. You don't actually have PvP, but a player can attack your fort which will be defended by your army there at that time.

+Nemesis system. Same as SoM, You got to love it how they remember everything, and in SoW orcs that you killed may also come back with the "cheated death" feature, and orcs may also betray you and ambush you. It's just as awesome as it was in shadow of Mordor, but on steroids!

+ They removed loot boxes, which makes the game a bit harder simply because you can't buy your orcs anymore. However they also added unlimited end game levelling now. so you can keep raising levels beyond 60 now.

+ the DLC are very nice. Especially the Blade of Galadriel!

Verdict: Graphics: 9/10
Difficulty: Easy to learn, Medium to master
Content: 8/10
Price/quality: 8/10
Story: 8.5/10

Totally Game of the Year for me. If there would be more content after the Shadow Wars (end game) like all the expansions that are promised combined with a targetting/camera system or an option to turn off the captain cutscenes this game would be a 9.5/10!

A MUST TRY!