The Shadow of Mordor games are a bad match for the LOTR license.

[Zhukov]

So, just to be clear, I'm not hating on the game(s) here. I basically enjoyed Shadow of Morder. It had its flaws and I could whine about them for many paragraphs, but overall I had a decent time with it. The upcoming sequel looks at least mildly promising with the developers apparently expanding on the 'Nemesis system' to make it a core mechanic rather than a nifty flourish. I will likely buy it and I expect to enjoy it.

I should also clarify that I'm not condemning it out of some zealous fanboy love for Lord of the Rings. LOTR has never really been my cup of tea. I acknowledge that it's basically the bedrock of modern fantasy, but I've always preferred my fantasy a bit less fairy tale and a bit more grounded, for lack of a better term.

All that said, Shadow of Mordor and its upcoming sequel strike me as a terrible fit for their license on multiple levels.

Firstly, as mentioned above, the LOTR books always had a kind of fairy tale vibe to them. A sort of modern incarnation of the old epics. That just doesn't mesh one little bit with an Ubisoft-em-up open world kill-a-thon. "And there in the blighted land of Mordor Talion the ranger, mighty among men, scaled the shattered ruins of ages past atop which he unlocked a fast travel point. Then he got into a fight and broke his record with a sweet 104 hit combo!"

Secondly, the developer's attempts to fit their crap into the LOTR canon are rather painful to watch. "Ohh, yeah, there was totally these three dark servants of Sauron running around. They're really epic and important but nobody mentioned them until now. Also, there was totally an orc insurrection led by a possessed ranger going on in Mordor." They clearly want the events in their games to be big and "epic" and somehow related to the movies that everyone watched but they know they can't have Talion stab Sauron at the end. (Although I wouldn't put it past them to have a Sauron fight in the inevitable third game.

Thirdly, even as a non-fan of LOTR, some of the shit they're trying pull annoys even me. Shelob, the giant fucking spider, is now a sexy lady. Talion and his elf ghost buddy are going to make their own One Ring. There are no words to describe how far my eyes rolled upon learning of that last one. It's just such a bloody quintessentially video-game-sequel idea. Escalation in the dumbest and most straightforward manner possible.

Lastly, there's a lot that could be said about the thematic mismatch. Luckily I don't have to say it because somebody much smarter than me [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/12479-Shadow-of-Mordor-is-Tawdry-Tolkien-Fanfiction] and more familiar with LOTR has already said it better than I ever could [https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=24726].

All things considered, I think the games as they are would have been more suited to the Warhammer IP. Hodgepodge fantasy playground? A story that revolves around killing everything in your way? Whacky, colourful orc bosses? That's got Warhammer written all over it.

 

[Saelune]

I think they should make their own IP instead, rather than attach to any existing one.

 

[Fappy]

I really don't think LotR is a good world to expand upon in any form, even if they stay true to the spirit of Tolkien's original vision. It's such a well established and old fantasy world that pretty much anything you do with it beyond adapting the books feels like stupid/cheap fan fiction.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I really don't think LotR is a good world to expand upon in any form, even if they stay true to the spirit of Tolkien's original vision. It's such a well established and old fantasy world that pretty much anything you do with it beyond adapting the books feels like stupid/cheap fan fiction.

Yeah, pretty much this. Neither am I a LOTR fanboy, but the story as it stands within the trilogy is enough; any attempt to tack anything on just screams ?cheap, tangential cash grab.? *cough*starwars*cough* I?ve not played the game but I heard good things; I think Saelune is right, they should take their mechanics and do a new IP versus trying to ride the coattails of beloved 63-year-old canon.

 

[Anti-American Eagle]

To my understanding their intent was less a "this is totally canon guys" and more a "fuck it. hold my beer" continuity where a possessed ranger invaded Mordor with his blackjack-and-hooker army of orcs so he could kill Sauron.

Atleast that was the impression I had when I looked into the game. Maybe they've changed their minds since and have decided it was "totes canonical" despite the canon being the collected works of tolkien, with the adaptations being adaptations.

The game only works because of it not working. If they declare it to work in the setting it suddenly doesn't work as a lotr game because of this.

 

[Zhukov]

I think they should make their own IP instead, rather than attach to any existing one.

Well, yeah, that would have worked too. But I'm sure you know how the words "original IP" terrify the decision makers of the gaming industry. Not entirely without reason, sadly.

I assume they wanted a recognized IP to help sell their new game.

 

[Saelune]

I think they should make their own IP instead, rather than attach to any existing one.

Well, yeah, that would have worked too. But I'm sure you know how the words "original IP" terrify the decision makers of the gaming industry. Not entirely without reason, sadly.

I assume they wanted a recognized IP to help sell their new game.

Well, I dont know if the developers knew the gold they were making with the first Shadow of Mordor.

They could try to pull a Bioware at some point though, since Dragon Age and Mass Effect were essentially Bioware moving on but not moving on from making DnD and Star Wars games.

 

[shrekfan246]

All things considered, I think the games as they are would have been more suited to the Warhammer IP. Hodgepodge fantasy playground? A story that revolves around killing everything in your way? Whacky, colourful orc bosses? That's got Warhammer written all over it.

Warhammer isn't allowed to have good games.

(I still find a lot of them interesting, though.)

I don't disagree with you. I like Shadow of Mordor, but it doesn't really mesh with The Lord of the Rings even from the basic premise. It kinda feels like an Abrams Star Trek situation, where the surface-level looks recognizable but everything else is a bit off. Except Shadow of Mordor doesn't have the excuse of being an alternate universe.

[sub][sub][sub][sub][sub][sub]I like reboot Trek too. Come at me, bros.[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[Pseudonym]

Eh. I've played shadow of mordor for a bit. It was alright. The story did indeed suck and not fit the lotr licence but the story was also very unimportant. You were mostly just running around experimenting with the orcs and the nemesis system. Orcs work as badguys that are simply evil and stupid but are simultaneously diverse enough to support the nemesis system. So in that sense I don't think LOTR was that bad of a setting. Yeah, the gameplay clashes with story elements but the gameplay would have clashed with just about any story.

A lot of the story elements clashed with LOTR themes and feel but a lot of the story elements were, in my memory, just plain bad and clashed with good taste in general. I don't think its as much of a mismatch as it is the story of Shadow of Morder being just bad.

 

[happyninja42]

I think they should make their own IP instead, rather than attach to any existing one.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts. I personally don't give a shit about the LOTR franchise, and find the books to be vastly over rated. The Shadow of Mordor game was fucking awesome though, and I think it was shackled by the LOTR connection. I'd much rather they just made up their own realm, with it's own fantasy rules, and let us run around doing shit with the Nemesis System. They're making it all up at this point anyway, so it's not like it matters to stay "true to the source material".

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

I have to agree. I really like(d) Shadow of Mordor and enjoyed its Tolkien roots. While the story reeked of ignorance and/or disrespect, the game was well done, the mechanics were absolutely fine and had an outright addictive quality to them. It was all good.

With every new press release about the new title, though, I grow more and more certain that I will absolutely not buy it. Spider lady cast a web of substantive doubt on me. Messing with races and lore... not a fan. I'm with Saelune on this - they should have enjoyed the success of Shadow of Mordor and then moved on to make their own fantasy IP with all the creative freedom they craved. Too bad IP licenses are expensive and need to be exhausted at all costs. I'm really surprised they were allowed to tear Tolkien lore a new one and I wonder if they really are going to get away with it.

 

[sanquin]

Wait, when did the Shadow of Mordor game(s) become canon? I always thought they were a 'what if' side story kind of thing that only based itself in the LOTR universe but didn't have any real connection to the canon lore apart from some names/characters.

 

[DaCosta]

I absolutely hate LotR.

Considering I loved Shadow of Mordor, I don't really give a shit if it fits with the rest of the canon. Hell, I wish it more actively shat on the canon rather than hold itself back because of it.

That being said, I'm pretty confident that building a new ring being wrong is exactly the point, and Talion realizing that is going to drive a divide between him and Celebrimbor, setting up CB as the villain for the inevitable third game.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

You know what else was a bad match for the LotR license? The Hobbit movies.
I personally consider Shadow of Mordor part of the film canon, which is obviously separate from the books'.

Wait, when did the Shadow of Mordor game(s) become canon? I always thought they were a 'what if' side story kind of thing that only based itself in the LOTR universe but didn't have any real connection to the canon lore apart from some names/characters.

It's "canon" in the sense that it doesn't directly contradict or rewrite any of Tolkien's lore (so far anyway), even if it's nowhere near similar in terms of tone or spirit. If you ask Christopher Tolkien though, then it's most certainly not canon.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

"And there in the blighted land of Mordor Talion the ranger, mighty among men, scaled the shattered ruins of ages past atop which he unlocked a fast travel point. Then he got into a fight and broke his record with a sweet 104 hit combo!"

The reason why I think "Lovecraftian horror game" is a misguided concept. The whole point of Lovecraft's stories is how nothing can fully be explained or described, and evil is by nature cryptic and ambiguous. So all those games that pretend to be "Lovecraftian" while making you deplete a Shoggoth's lifebar for XP feel like they're missing the point.

 

[Kyrian007]

I think they should make their own IP instead, rather than attach to any existing one.

Well, yeah, that would have worked too. But I'm sure you know how the words "original IP" terrify the decision makers of the gaming industry. Not entirely without reason, sadly.

I assume they wanted a recognized IP to help sell their new game.

Well, I dont know if the developers knew the gold they were making with the first Shadow of Mordor.

They could try to pull a Bioware at some point though, since Dragon Age and Mass Effect were essentially Bioware moving on but not moving on from making DnD and Star Wars games.

That was my hope for Shadow of Mordor, that it was basically just a test for adding the nemesis system to an arkham beat-em up with swords and blood placed in an ubisoft radio tower open world with a Syndicate (the original) style recruitment system thrown into the second half.

And it worked. Well. It was a good game. But without the license they never would have found out, nobody would have bought it. And I also hoped for a Bioware DnD, Star Wars to Mass Effect or Rare Goldeneye to Perfect Dark scenario. Then again I can see an advanced nemesis system fitting well into several types of game, so they could just be perfecting it with this sequel. But at some point I want to see a game "from the makers of Shadow of Mordor."

 

[Zhukov]

Wait, when did the Shadow of Mordor game(s) become canon?

I don't know if they're "officially" canon. I suspect if you were to ask whoever handles these things for the Tolkien estate then the answer would be a hard No.

But they're clearly trying to be canon. Or trying to pretend to be. What with the way they constantly reference the events and characters of LOTR while also trying, with varying degrees of success, to avoid contradicting them.

I'm not personally a stickler for canon or strict continuity and the nerdy obsession with it actually irritates me. I'm happy to handwave a lot of stuff in service of a good story. (Note: good story, not Blandy McDudebro Stabs Many Things story.) But watching people try to pull off this kind of awkward and ultimately futile balancing act still makes me twitch a bit.

If an additional story must be made to coexist with an already existing one then the way to do it is to narrow the focus down to something small and personal, something that would plausibly have gone unmentioned in the wider narrative. But no, that won't fly in the video game world. Everything must be "EPIC". (Anyone else remember when that word actually meant something?)

Of course the whole thing could be avoided by coming up with original IP. Buuuuuut... yeah.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Currently playing the game because I bought it on steam sale for $4. I'm having a decent amount of fun with it, but it really bothers me just how completely overpowered Talion is in it.

Obviously it has the same combat system as the Batman games, and that tends to trivialize the encounters, but when you have Batman fighting a dozen guys and kicking the crap out of them it seems fitting because he's Batman. He's got the gadgets, the armored suit, the mastery of a hundred martial arts (or whatever it is in the comic books). Point is he's over-equipped to deal with some random nothing henchmen who are scared to death of him as it is.

On the other hand, when you have some random ranger killing a dozen Orcs without breaking a sweat it feels like bullshit because Boromir, this supposedly great hero, got his shit completely pushed in doing that exact same thing. Every orc is supposed to be a threat but instead they're barely even a speed-bump. Add to this that the AI are basically blind and you can walk over and stealth stab them from the front, I feel like some almighty god of death strolling through Morder rather than a ranger trying to sneak through enemy territory.

 

[stroopwafel]

The only knowledge I have of The Lord of the Rings are the movies which I found really boring. They are really family movies that grandma can watch together with the kids and nobody gets offended or psychologically damaged. I also played through Shadow of Mordor and I never had the impression that the LotR license was anything more than window dressing. It's true that pretty much anything fantasy based riffs off LotR(atleast aesthetically) so might as well stop pretending altogether. Also in the game you kill orcs and that's it whatever story there is hardly even registered. Shadow of Mordor was a fun take on the Arkham combat in a LotR setting but other than some hardcore geeks I think most won't really care how much the minutiae of the game stays true to general franchise lore. My only concern is if the new game will be similarly repetitive. The nemesis system was cool though and so was the combat. I actually enjoyed it more than in the Arkham games despite copying that system.

 

[Zhukov]

Currently playing the game because I bought it on steam sale for $4. I'm having a decent amount of fun with it, but it really bothers me just how completely overpowered Talion is in it.

Oh yeah. Totally agree.

How far in are you?

Because if you haven't unlocked the second map yet then be warned, it gets so much worse. I won't spoil anything but suffice to say by the late game you get not one but three different abilities that allow you to chain insta-kills with no restriction except a cooldown. And a teleporting insta-kill. And you can outrun absolutely everything if you need to. The list just goes on.

Obviously it has the same combat system as the Batman games, and that tends to trivialize the encounters, but when you have Batman fighting a dozen guys and kicking the crap out of them it seems fitting because he's Batman. He's got the gadgets, the armored suit, the mastery of a hundred martial arts (or whatever it is in the comic books). Point is he's over-equipped to deal with some random nothing henchmen who are scared to death of him as it is.

I thought the Arkham games suffered from the same problem, at least to some degree.

Not so much with the combat because there at least there's time pressure. You have to think of what to do then remember and execute the inputs in the second or so before the next guy hits you or you lose your combo for dithering too long. Different matter in regards to the stealth though, since there you get to take your time. By Knight, if not the late game of City you have no many options and upgrades and get-out-of-fuck-up-free cards that the encounters are all trivial.