Middle-earth: Shadow of War

Middle-earth: Shadow of War built upon its predecessor Shadow of Mordor in various ways. However, despite all its additions, Shadow of War treads the same waters so much that I feel its main purpose was selling the same game again -- just with added microtransactions. Shadow of War's lootboxes were received so poorly that Monolith Productions/WB Games ended up removing them a year after the game's release while also retuning the epilogue chapter which players had criticized to be an extremely arduous grind when refusing to engage with the game's real money store.

Shadow of Greed

There was also a (preorder?) DLC -- and I had forgotten about it until reading the wikipedia article now -- that allegedly honored the game's executive producer Michael David Forgey who had died of cancer. Warner Bros. in their vast generosity were going to donate $3.50 from each purchase of the $5 DLC to the Forgey family. A public backlash forced WB to make the DLC free and refund all proceeds, and donate a lump sum instead. Needless to say, Shadow of War got rather tarnished by greed.

I don't remember the exact end state of Shadow of Mordor's story but War continues with pretty much on the same tracks as the previous game: the undying Gondorian ranger Talion (Troy Baker) and his ghostly co-existence elf buddy, ring smith Celebrimbor (Alastair Duncan) continue dominating orcs to fight Sauron. The story of Mordor and War was never going to go anywhere since they're set before The Lord of the Rings trilogy: no room for anything involving Sauron. Shadow of War does provide a definitive ending for Talion but also leaves the door ajar for a potential sequel -- which seems unlikely to happen.

Shadow of Mordor was already well in the fan fiction territory with its narrative but Shadow of War is even more on the nose by having Shelob take a humanoid form right at the beginning. Who knows what Ungoliant was capable of, and her offspring could've as easily inherited her abilities, potentially including shapeshifting. But be as it may, Shelob is merely one of the endless extended lore features of the game -- I would play Shadow of War for the gameplay, not for Tolkien's lore.

Just like in Mordor, War too has a DLC whose female protagonist's appearance can be used to replace Talion in the main game. In hindsight, I maybe should've kept to Talion this time because there is actual gear (instead of just runes) that have different looks. The Eltariel skin(s) doesn't change in appearance outside her own gear in the Blade of Galadriel DLC. Even so, I did prefer her lithe elf looks. For some story quests, the game forces Talion's appearance on you but not always, which I found odd. In prerendered cutscenes Talion is of course himself as well. I found it amusing that Laura Bailey voiced Eltariel, kind of reprising her role of Lithariel in Mordor. Shadow of War is a repeat of the previous game in so many ways.

Same but also different gameplay

I didn't 100% Shadow of Mordor when I first played it -- that happened when I started increasing my average game completion rate on Steam. The game, or rather its DLC, had a trio of memorable achievements (also the rarest ones) because they force you to learn the true depth of the mechanics. You don't need to do that when beating the game casually.

Shadow of War is less sweaty with its achievements; it doesn't demand perfected tactics for 100%. The game took me thrice as long to beat, however. One big reason for that is how most gear pieces have a challenge to unlock their full potential. I kept doing each one just in case I'll need a particular piece for a build or something. Some of the challenges -- for instance, executing an orc captain while under 25% health -- can be tricky and time consuming to set up and pull off successfully.

Combat works a familiar manner but there's a difference. Shadow of Mordor was largely akin to Batman: Arkham Knight in how you keep building up hitstreak to then use finishing moves to get rid of masses. Shadow of War works more like the recent(ish) Gotham Knights. Hitstreak is secondary; orc grunts take no effort to wipe out. You're not reactive rather than proactive. Orcs are aggressive: watching out for parry prompt works but it's often too late to react to the dodge prompts. War is even more about fighting the weaknesses and strengths of the orc captains than Mordor was.

Monolith is also still bad at making enjoyable boss fights. Fights against orcs created by the game's system are more fun than scripted ringwraiths or whatever.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is objectively greater than its predecessor when it comes to the number of features it has. And I did enjoy the gameplay. But despite that I feel it wasn't different enough to have been that great of time. There's too much repetition: the increased number of maps alone reveals that fact.

Had an endless orc mass spawn event happen here