Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is an open world video game, where the player controls a Ranger by the name of Talion who seeks revenge on the forces of Sauron after his family, including his wife, are killed. Though Talion is mortally felled in the game's introduction, the wraith of the Elvin Lord Celebrimbor is able to use his power to keep Talion alive, along with gifting him wraith-like abilities to exact his revenge.[1] Missions in the game feature main story missions that follow Talion's quest for revenge, side missions that involve following Gollum as to find artifacts that are tied to Celebrimbor's past, missions to free the human slaves that have been captured by the Uruk armies and forced to work for Sauron, and additional quests to help forge new abilities for Talion's sword, bow, and knife. The player also has the freedom to pursue side quests and roam around Mordor, with special activities to collect specific flora or to hunt certain creatures, or to find old artifacts or Elvish seals.[3] Completing quests earns the player a number of rewards: experience points that are used to unlock new abilities for the player from both Talion's ranger and Celebrimbor's wraith skills, a Power value that allows the player to access more powerful abilities to unlock, and an in-game currency that the player can use to improve Talion's health, wraith skill capacity, or forge new slots on his weapons to add additional runes (as described in the Nemesis System below).[3]

In completing missions, the player can have Talion engage in melee, ranged combat, and stealth approaches, with some missions rewarding the player more for completing the mission in a specific manner. Talion's ranger abilities are enhanced through Celebrimbor, allowing the player to mix combat with special focus-based attacks; these latter attacks can be used to slow time down while aiming with the bow, drain focus out of an enemy foe, or, later in the game, brand the foe to become an ally of Talion. The combat system uses an attack-chain system that enables the player to perform special moves after building the chain to a large enough value, such as instantly draining a foe of focus or performing an area focus attack. Stealth is a critical element in some missions; several areas are considered Strongholds and should Talion's presence be discovered, an alarm will sound and more Uruks will arrive to try to kill him.[3]

A core feature of Shadows of Mordor is the Nemesis system. The game tracks a number of specially tagged Uruks as part of Sauron's armies, who will lead the other Uruks in battle. Defeating these leaders will help to weaken Sauron's army, and these leaders will drop a rune which the player can install on Talion's weapons to provide additional buffs in battle. Alternative, being killed by a leader will cause the current mission to be cancelled and the player returned to a safe point to continue exploring, and the leader will gain additional power, making him more difficult to defeat in the next encounter. Further, such deaths are tracked through online servers, and the player's friends on the various network services (such as via Steam friends for Windows players) will be notified of this death and be offered the chance to exact revenge on the Uruk, which if successful will give rewards to both the original player and the victorious friend. The leader Uruk will have a range of strengths and weaknesses, the latter that can be exploited in combat to quickly weaken and defeat the leader. The player can gain knowledge of these through finding intelligence, either by locating papers with the information, speaking to rescued slaves, or draining marked Uruks for this. Being able to exploit such weaknesses in defeating the leader will gain a better quality rune and more experience points in this manner. Once the player gains the ability to brand Uruks, they can brand these leaders and convert portions of Sauron's army to their side. At this point, the player can use the Nemesis system to trigger infighting within the Uruk forces which they can then directly participate in, helping to weaken the army further. Uruks that survive their encounter with Talion will remember this when Talion combats them again; for example, an Uruk who was thrown into a fire by Talion might want revenge on him for being disfigured.[1]

In February 2014, Monolith Productions announced that the Nemesis System, being a large system, will be reduced in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 releases, also stating that they were "focusing on the next-gen platforms," meaning the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One systems. Furthermore, they stated that they are "going to do whatever we can to get as much as possible on current-gen." Monolith Productions also stated that "some of the stuff," meaning the "core mechanics," which are combat, stealth, ranger abilities and movements, the basic control and gameplay, will be the same on both generations of gaming consoles.[4]