Shadow of war is a new action RPG developed by ‘Monolith Productions’ coming out October 10th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. If you was a fan of Shadow of Mordor then Shadow of war should be for you.
Honestly we never heard of Shadow of war or Shadow of Mordor until recently so we checked out some game play and liking what we saw. You must take on fortresses in really big battles with your own army of Orcs. Your goal is to dominate Mordor. The combat system instantly reminds us of Batman arkham as in you dash from enemy to enemy striking them and waiting for that indication that an enemy is attacking, for you to block or parry. You see your combo count and can do some cool looking executions like knocking them on the floor and then face punching them just like in Gears of war 3 & 4 but much faster (it’s called fury). The combat isn’t that fast. The enemies kind of just stand by and wait for their turn to attack you, like in the movies. The good thing about this means you will have an easier time in combat.
Shadow of War has an army screen is real cool. Your army is made up of different Orcs with different strengths and weaknesses. Like the beast master is larger and more powerful than the ‘Warmonger Marksman’ but he is heavily damaged by ranged attacks so he will need support when attacking places that have lots of archers and ranged attacks etc. Some Orcs have masks like the Mystic destroyer while we saw another bigger Orc with antlers. The mystic destroyer gets dazed by Caragors and is weak against poison so players must take these things into account. Ogg the Elder is a powerful legendary Warmonger assassin but even it has some weaknesses like being terrified of Morgai flies. The Orcs are so different and interesting that it just adds much more to the game than what any previous ones have.
When attacking strongholds and fortresses in Shadow of War, you have the opportunity to upgrade and make certain units have abilities to help you dominate the stronghold. Like more defensive soldiers to help capture points faster or have more hunters who are more effective against beasts. Will your siege beats launch fire or poison? Think about it. It literally gets real deep. You can be supported with a swarm of spiders that poison and attack, or have a drake which flies around and rains down fire or have a giant war Graug who can fling boulders and help cause immense destruction.
A whole lot of work went into this game and it shows. You can save yourself from some executions with quick time events in the middle of a battle and they look flashy. We saw a giant olaf kill the player and then break their sword; however if you find that same creature and kill it then you get your sword back but upgraded and more powerful. There are a lot of powers, abilities, upgrades and moves in Shadow of war like ‘unstoppable’ which increases your critical strike chance significantly as you keep your hit streak over 30. You have options though as you could choose ‘Elven Precision’ increases your chances of critical hits if you time your button press with landed strikes. Scale the sides of walls to reach certain enemies like archers. Throw knives in the middle of combos, flip over enemies or even back hand some.
We think the ‘Wraith shield’ will seriously come in handy because it allows a wraith to counter enemies who try to interrupt you completing a ground execution. Use drain to steal health from enemies and even when upgraded, brand enemies to make them on your side. Turn them against each other. The ground execution upgrade allows you to drain enemies you knocked down in the middle of combat.
Overall this game is looking real cool right now. The smooth flowing combat with multiple options. The army screen is just great to have. The details of the Orcs like items and strengths all just adds to level of design. The graphics look great right now. The sounds are great as well. The developers ‘Monolith Productions’ did a really good job so far with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker think Shadow of War is worth checking out. Some like Orcs while others don’t regardless of what you like, just make sure to like… the ‘Earth Walk!’
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