Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor came out last year to widespread appeal. Sure, the combat s just a gorier, hyper deadly version of what we ve already seen in the Batman Arkham games. Yeah, open world icon assassination was clearly lifted from Assassin’s Creed. But this time those icons were orcs, with actual memories and personalities, balanced on a power structure which the player was free to tinker with.
It’s great, but by the end of the game, messing with those systems felt unnecessary. You were powerful enough to just wade into the fortresses and kill your targets willy-nilly. What’s held my attention instead are the extra modes added since launch (one free, the rest paid-for DLC), which allow you to play the game as something approximating a roguelike. The free Test of Defiance is the only mode that actually limits you to a single death, but it also doesn t randomize the enemies or require you to gather intel on them.. Instead, I m playing the Test of the Wild , which tasks you with killing all 5 Warchiefs plus all 20 Captains . I m only giving myself one life, and to make things more interesting I ll only use runes which I find as I play, ignoring the haul I gathered while playing the main game. Bring it on, hordes of Sauron.
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