Middle-earth: Shadow of War: Definitive Edition

Genre: Open-World Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Middle-earth: Shadow Bundle, along with Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor: Game of the Year Edition.)

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is an Open-World Action-RPG and sequel to Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, first released in 2017 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with a port to Nintendo Switch in 2026 in this Definitive Edition that includes all of the game’s post-release DLC content.

Shadow of War suffered in its initial release due to some nasty microtransactions that were worked into the game that pushed players hard into spending real money in the late parts of the game, which you may not be surprised to hear soured many players’ opinion of the game. These were subsequently removed, but by that point the damage was done – the game’s reputation was in the dumps, and it was the last game ever made by developer Monolith Productions, who shut down in 2025. I feel like there’s an important lesson to be learned there, but that’s neither here nor there.

In any case, the point is, this terrible decision to include microtransactions really hurt the game and those who created it, but now that we have the game without those microtransactions… honestly, this is a really great sequel, one that addresses many of the issues I had with the previous game, as well as streamlining some things that make for an overall better experience.

Based loosely on the film versions of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films, Shadow of Mordor takes place during the gap between those two trilogies, set not long after the end of the previous game. At the end of that game, the ranger Talion and his wraith elf lord counterpart Celebrimbor learned of the latter’s past and the way the series antagonist Sauron was planning to use Celebrimbor to regain corporeal form, but the heroes discovered that The One Ring was too powerful to fight directly, and resolved to use Celebrimbor’s smithing skills to forge a new ring that had the potential to defeat Sauron.

This game starts with the pair in the volcanic chamber of Mount Doom doing just that, only for the final strike of the hammer to blast away Celebrimbor and leave Talion clinging to the new ring, the only thing keeping him from instantly dying due to his mortal wounds and Celebrimbor’s absence. Talion manages to track down Celebrimbor, now being held captive by Shelob, who in this story is more than just a giant spider, but also can take on the appearance of a human temptress and can impart visions of the future? Anyway, she pressures Talion to give up the ring in exchange for Celebrimbor, and while the wraith wants to immediately get the ring back from her, Talion is more concerned about visions she imparted to him predicting the fall of the last Gondorian stronghold in Mordor, Minas Ithil. Using Shelob’s guidance (much to Celebrimbor’s dismay), the heroes head for Minas Ithil to prevent this disaster.

While I’m not thrilled that each member of the pair of heroes has placed their trust in an obviously untrustworthy party that the other sees right through (Shelob and Gollum), and how it leads to the pair constantly bickering like an old married couple through the game, I do appreciate how this game’s scope goes beyond the pair’s personal conflict with the forces of Mordor and now incorporates people and forces involved in the greater conflict between Mordor and other outlying areas, and by the end, we see how this story ties into the start of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, giving the two-part saga a fitting conclusion.

As with Shadow of Mordor, I do want to be clear that Shadow of War is a port – nothing has been done to remake or remaster this game, or even improve its framerate beyond the 30FPS of other versions. The only update this release has gotten is optional gyroscopic motion control for aiming when using the bow – a nice addition, but that’s it. However, unlike Shadow of Mordor, I’m not as disappointed this time around, because Shadow of War wasn’t a cross-generational game and was originally released only for the PlayStation 4/Xbox One generation, and as such it’s graphically more impressive and more in line with modern expectations, with great lighting, nice textures, detailed environments, and superb 3D character models. This game may be nearly a decade old, but it has aged exceptionally well.

I’ll also say that this game’s environments are much more varied than the first game, and more visually-interesting too. A large chunk of the early portion of the game takes place in the city of Minas Ithil, and wow what a difference this makes, both for visual variety and gameplay, with grand medieval architecture, burning wooden buildings, and at times impressively large hordes of enemies to wade through.

However, even more than the visual difference this makes, Minas Ithil feels like what the first game was lacking when it comes to gameplay too, because its large structures give players plenty of choices for traversal, stealth, and ways to use the environment to their advantage while attacking. Playing this game is a revelation about Shadow of Mordor, like realizing that the first game was like playing as Spider-Man in the Midwest instead of New York City.

The game does gradually open up to include other regions, which are separate but Open-World within the region (so, “Open Zone”, I suppose), but you do spend a considerable amount of time at the start of the game within Minas Ithil, which is why I focus on it so much. However, even when you get to other areas, the game tries to present players with a good amount of variety of terrain, as well as interesting ways to traverse that terrain – like the first game, you eventually gain the ability to “dominate” mounts, but this time around you have more options, including flying drakes.

There are so many little ways that the first game’s gameplay is expanded upon or improved here. Your HUD makes it much clearer how many arrows you have remaining. “Dominating” and interrogating enemies is much more straightforward. Regaining health happens automatically as you fight or you can use the “dominate” ability to drain health from enemies – no need to hunt down plants to restore health anymore. Defeating major enemy captains now not only gives you experience and points to distribute into your skill tree, but actual equipment that can be managed and used to let you customize your build. And after you leave Minas Ithil and start to explore other areas, you gain the ability to manage converted enemies like your own army, even organizing them into fortress sieges.

Oh, on that note, the Nemesis system of the first game is back, but here it is expanded upon in creative ways. Some stronger enemies will take it upon themselves to hunt you down. Sometimes, an enemy will manage to create an escape for themselves just before you finish them off, giving you your own hunt to pursue if you choose to. One particular enemy I encountered managed to survive death multiple times by augmenting his body with machine parts to replace the flesh I’d cleaved through in our previous encounter. And all of these make for fun, unique interactions that make each major orc encounter potentially a small story unto itself.

This is all in addition to the already-great combat, along with movement that feels quicker and more fluid this time around, with players able to gain more combat options as they progress.

I do still have criticisms here – I don’t like that this game has segmented the sections of its open world, and it does so in a way I found to be confusing. I’ve already noted that parts of the story seem a bit odd. And yeah, I do think I’m still once again largely doing the same thing over and over again. But… wow, what a joy it is to do it, and Shadow of War is much, much better about finding interesting ways to shake things up and keep them interesting. Plus, it has that hallmark of a great Open-World game, in that I head off in a direction looking to do one thing, but then get distracted by something interesting to do, and then another, and then another, and hours later I’m realizing “oh yeah, I meant to do that one thing before I got sidetracked…”

In the end, Middle-earth: Shadow of War doesn’t just play like the sequel to Shadow of Mordor, it feels like everything Shadow of Mordor wanted to be but wasn’t quite there yet. It addresses many of the issues I had with the prior game, improves many parts of the game I didn’t even realize I wanted improvements on, and overall creates an absolutely brilliant Open-World Action-RPG that’s a joy to play. And thankfully we’re now well beyond the time when this game was dragged down by microtransactions, able to enjoy it the way it should have been in the first place. If you’re a fan of Action-RPGs and especially if you’re a fan of the Middle-earth franchise, Shadow of War is an absolute must-play game, even nearly a decade later in 2026. Do not miss it.

tl;dr – Middle-earth: Shadow of War is an Open-World Action-RPG and sequel to Shadow of Mordor set between the Hobbit trilogy and Lord of the Rings trilogy, following the story of a ranger possessed by the spirit of an elven lord trying to defend the realm of Middle-earth from the forces of Sauron. While this release does nothing to update or modernize this 9 year-old game, it’s far less in need of modernization than its predecessor was, and in fact this game improves on the prior game in countless ways, resulting in the game Shadow of Mordor was aiming to be. The result is an absolute joy to play, and a must-have game for Action-RPG fans and especially fans of the Middle-earth franchise. Do not miss this game.

Grade: A

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