Improve Its Characters
Of the many praises that were thrown at Shadow of Mordor when it released in 2014, its characters weren’t among them. The world of Middle-Earth is typically known for being lighthearted and jaunty, but then Mordor came along looking like any generic dark fantasy game, and its lead characters, Talion and Celebrimbor, didn’t help. They both certainly start out interesting, but by the time you see some of the latter’s flashbacks when he was alive, you pretty much know that his backstory of a dead family is roughly in line with Talion’s, and they both sort of blend together as one mopey entity.
Shadow of War doesn’t look like it’s going to divert from the tone of the original game, but its trailer does hint that the game will explore a facet of its two leads by having them be separated from one another. After forging a new Ring of Power, Celebrimbor is whisked away by a shadowy force no doubt connected to Sauron, leaving Talion alone with the Ring. Maybe some part of Celebrimbor is in the ring, or perhaps they’ll still be bonded to each other even while separated such a long distance. Either way, it’ll hopefully make one or both of them interesting.
This also needs to extend to the side characters of Shadow of War as well. Mordor’s were fairly bland across the board, and not helping was how they functioned as quest givers or walking tutorials. They pretty much came and went the moment their purpose in the story ended, and with the improvements to the Nemesis system, that’ll hopefully be a change for the better.
A Bigger, Livelier World
The world of Middle-Earth is one of the most well known fictional universes of all time. Whether it’s the sweeping majesty of Minas Tirith or the fiery hellscape of Mount Doom, it’s got a distinct look all its own that wasn’t really all that prevalent in Shadow of Mordor. Yes, the titular location isn’t exactly gonna have an Apple Store or a food truck, but there’s no denying that the world is so barren. There are stretches of land where you could just run around doing nothing, and that’s not always a good thing for an open world game.
Shadow of War will need to give the player much more to do. Games like The Witcher and Horizon have populated areas for players to just soak in the world at, along with a bevy of things to do outside of those hub towns. There’s some indication of that in the trailer, as we see a kingdom not too long before Sauron does what he does best with his Nazgul. Maybe this’ll be one hub town of many, or it’ll be the only one. Regardless, War will need to vary its locations so it doesn’t feel like a dull world to go through.
More Weapons
Talion in Shadow of Mordor is supposedly one of the best Rangers of Gondor to ever exist, but you wouldn’t really notice. Sure, he can lop heads off and kill like the best of them, but for some reason, he was never really equipped as such. All he had were his son’s broken swords, an actual sword, and a bow formed from his Wraith powers. And that was…kinda it. Shadow of War needs more.
Not to say that Talion should be lighting Orcs up with a rocket launcher or a lightsaber, as awesome as that sounds. But the box art for the Silver and Gold editions of the game show a ring of weapons in the background, from swords to axes and clubs. It’d make for some fun and variety in weapons if Talion had a larger array of sharp objects to work with as he blows his way through Mordor.
And then, of course, there’s the Ring that he and Celebrimbor have forged. Given that the latter personally made the Rings of Fire, Water, and Air, plus helping Sauron in making the One Ring, there’s no doubt that this new one has some tricks up its sleeve. Whether it means new Wraith abilities like complete possession of an Orc or whole new weapons, that Ring is going to be integral to Shadow of War the whole way through.
Boss Fights
Look, there’s no way around this: Shadow of Mordor’s boss fights–as in, the ones pertinent to the actual story–were not good. They all basically boiled down to “lure out the big bad, wail on him, fight his lackeys, repeat.” Stretching them out through stretches of time in between one another did the game no favors, and in fact, may have hurt the overall game. Of the many things Shadow of War needs to address, this should be at the top.
Lord of the Rings has some colossal sized enemies and allies, as those who saw the films know. There’s no reason that Talion can’t fight some of those mammoth sized baddies, whether he’s got Celebrimbor along for the ride or not. They don’t need to be ridiculous, drawn out sequences where he’s jumping from eagle to eagle in the hopes of jumping on the back of that dragon that Sauron rides in the trailer, but fighting human sized enemies will certainly get old. Hell, even a sequence where you fight a boss completely as Celebrimbor trying to escape Sauron’s forces would be a nice change of pace.
Work That Story and Those Canon Tie-Ins Better
Both Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War are set in the 60 year gap between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. There are characters from both ends of the franchises that are alive during that time, such as Gollum and Saruman (There’s also some dude with a flaming eye, but he’s not really worth talking about). That’s to be expected, but the thing was, those cameos felt kinda forced and awkward. It felt as though the game was worried that it couldn’t be called a Lord of the Rings game without them, and they just didn’t work.
There’s not a doubt that we won’t see that little weirdo again in this game, given how persistent he is in pursuit of his Preciousssss. But any other cameos we get from established characters in this universe should be handled better, or at least not feel like the hand of the Tolkien estate made their appearance known in the script. For instance, this would be a good place as any to explain what happened to Tauriel from the Hobbit films.
While we’re at it, Shadow of War should also just have a better story. It’s not that Mordor’s was all that bad, but there wasn’t really much of it that was memorable beyond the Nemesis system or how that ending felt a bit rushed. For all the fun that came from building up your Orc army to take the fight to the Black Hand, everything just seemed to wrap up with a giant “meh,” and the various plot threads didn’t come together the way they should’ve. Now that there’s a more focused plot in sight for our heroes, let’s hope the story follows suit.
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