Middle Earth: Shadow of War Announced for August Release

[ffronw]

Middle Earth: Shadow of War Announced for August Release

Warner Bros. has announced a sequel to Middle Earth: Shadow Mordor. Middle Earth: Shadow of War will launch this August.

Yahtzee said it was [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/12324-Middle-earth-Shadow-of-Mordor-Offers-New-Twist-on-Tolkien-s-The-#&gid=gallery_3274&pid=1] "quite good." For the last three years, there have been occasional rumors that a sequel was in the works, but you can forget all of those, because Warner Bros. announced this morning that the sequel is real, and it's releasing in August.

Titled Middle Earth: Shadow of War, the sequel was announced with a trailer that definitely caught our attention here at The Escapist.


As you can see, Talion has returned, and with Celebrimborn's help, he's forged a new Ring of Power. the official description says, "Middle-earth: Shadow of War features an original story with the return of Talion and Celebrimbor, who must go behind enemy lines to forge an army and turn all of Mordor against the Dark Lord, Sauron."

We've obviously advanced in the timeline, because Sauron is back, and not just as a fiery eye atop a tower. This cinematic trailer doesn't reveal much as to what we can expect from gameplay (although it's not likely to change dramatically from the first game). Luckily, we won't have long to wait, as Warner also announced that there will be a gameplay trailer released on March 8.

The game is already available for pre-order, and will come in four different editions. Pre-ordering the standard edition gets you a legendary Champions War Part and the exclusive epic Sword of Dominion. Move up to the Silver Edition, and you'll add the Slaughter Tribe Nemesis Expansion, Outlaw Tribe Nemesis Expansion and a Silver War Chest. The expansions add a new Orc Tribe that brings new enemies, followers, missions, abilities, and weapons. They will also add content to the Fortress and wilderness, as well as a Mythic gear set. The Gold Edition adds even more content, including The Blade of Galadriel Story Expansion, The Desolation of Mordor Story Expansion and it replaces your Silver War Chest with a Gold one.

But the granddaddy of them all is the Mithril Edition. Not only does it give you a bunch of exclusive lithographs, a premium case with a magnetic Ring of Power on it, a copy of the soundtrack, a cloth map, stickers, and both gold and silver war chests, it also includes everything from the gold and silver editions. Oh, and there's also an amazing looking 12 inch tall bronze state of a Tal-Goroth Balrog fighting a Carnan Drake that you might be interested in as well.

Here's some more good news: We'll be getting our hands on Shadow of War this fall. Warner Bros. says that the game will be released for PC, PS4, Ps4 Pro, and Xbox One on August 22, 2017. It will also include support for Project Scorpio once the new Microsoft console launches in holiday 2017.

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[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I wish they made a Lord of the Rings like movie that looks exactly like this trailer.

I love these Hyper Realistc CGI.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Well it was a pretty decent game so yay!

 

[The Enquirer]

I enjoyed it a lot but unfortunately I'm very, very cautious about purchasing this since Arkham Knight was a thing.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

The game looks neat.

The preorder bonuses and different editions? Not so much.

 

[gigastar]

I enjoyed it a lot but unfortunately I'm very, very cautious about purchasing this since Arkham Knight was a thing.

Maybe im just a hopeless optimist, but i dont think Monolith will let WB shove the port off onto Iron Galaxy.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Just make the combat more challenging and solid and we're good to go.

Maybe im just a hopeless optimist, but i dont think Monolith will let WB shove the port off onto Iron Galaxy.

Implying Monolith has a choice. Just saiyan'.

 

[Tanis]

Man that statue is PIMP.

I...I COULD be persuaded pre-order that version, for the right price.

 

[Zydrate]

I'm all for it. SoM was a good game, though replayability was low because it became too easy once you learned all the systems. Once you learned what skills to get first, the orcs abysmal detection range, the power of the bow being able to take out half a stronghold before any of them figure out what's happening... The game became too easy.
The Nemesis system was great fun but it only worked on the first playthrough.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I own the first game, but I've never played it. Too busy, but I do remember reading an article on this site about how the game kind of completely misses the point of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings story.
And after seeing this trailer, I feel that statement is even more apparent.

So can those of you who played the game help me out here? Is this basically just an alternate universe of Lord of the Rings? Like, "Yeah, we like the setting and the lore, but we're doing our own thing", or are they really trying to make it so that these events could happen in Tolkien's world?

Don't get me wrong, the trailer looks exciting and I do intend to play Shadow of Mordor eventually, but the Tolkien fan in me is kind of going, "What the hell is this?" I mean, this kind of feels like what Boromir wanted to happen--although props to the writing team if that is their end goal, and this all ends up blowing up in Talion's face.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Sigh.

You know whenever a game has one of those statue things with it, it's gonna suck. Especially when WB is attached to it.

 

[shrekfan246]

I own the first game, but I've never played it. Too busy, but I do remember reading an article on this site about how the game kind of completely misses the point of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings story.
And after seeing this trailer, I feel that statement is even more apparent.

So can those of you who played the game help me out here? Is this basically just an alternate universe of Lord of the Rings? Like, "Yeah, we like the setting and the lore, but we're doing our own thing", or are they really trying to make it so that these events could happen in Tolkien's world?

Don't get me wrong, the trailer looks exciting and I do intend to play Shadow of Mordor eventually, but the Tolkien fan in me is kind of going, "What the hell is this?" I mean, this kind of feels like what Boromir wanted to happen--although props to the writing team if that is their end goal, and this all ends up blowing up in Talion's face.

It depends on how much of a purist about the universe you are. If you're going to erupt into a fiery mountain of rage at the thought of the ghost of an elf being tied to the soul of a human and thus causing him to essentially become immortal, and then that ghost conveniently happens to be the person who also forged the Rings of Power, then... well, you might want to hold off for another Lord of the Rings game.

Otherwise, if you squint hard enough you probably could convince yourself it's an alternate universe. Aside from some characters, it's not directly tied to any of the existing lore (and said characters are pulled more from The Silmarillion et al. than The Lord of the Rings) and while the way it goes about setting up the protagonist feels forced and like it's bending things reeeaaaaally hard, it's not theoretically impossible for the universe.

 

[K.ur]

So can those of you who played the game help me out here? Is this basically just an alternate universe of Lord of the Rings? Like, "Yeah, we like the setting and the lore, but we're doing our own thing", or are they really trying to make it so that these events could happen in Tolkien's world?

Not a Tolkien geek myself, but read that it (S. o. Mordor at least) takes place within an age and place Tolkien left rather blank. And Monolith tried to make sure it doesn't conflict with anything else.

 

[ryan_cs]

I own the first game, but I've never played it. Too busy, but I do remember reading an article on this site about how the game kind of completely misses the point of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings story.
And after seeing this trailer, I feel that statement is even more apparent.

So can those of you who played the game help me out here? Is this basically just an alternate universe of Lord of the Rings? Like, "Yeah, we like the setting and the lore, but we're doing our own thing", or are they really trying to make it so that these events could happen in Tolkien's world?

Don't get me wrong, the trailer looks exciting and I do intend to play Shadow of Mordor eventually, but the Tolkien fan in me is kind of going, "What the hell is this?" I mean, this kind of feels like what Boromir wanted to happen--although props to the writing team if that is their end goal, and this all ends up blowing up in Talion's face.

I don't really know the theme of Lord of the Rings, but I've played Shadows of Mordor and I think at the time I felt that an article I've read was spot on about the themes of Shadows of Mordor, so the article was probably right about the themes of Lord of the Rings.

But I think that it might be deliberate. There's this quote by Celebrimbor, the second protagonist in the Bright Lord DLC:
"In place of the Dark Lord, You shall have light undiminished, All shall fear me and rejoice."

There are some signs in the base game, but I think that this confirms that he's kind of evil.