MUCH LIKE MIDDLE-EARTH itself, the history of Lord Of The Rings games is a tale of good and evil. While the early 21st Century adaptations of the film trilogy on PS2 were well-received (breaking the ancient curse of the movie tie-in), Tolkien fans of late have had little worth leaving their proverbial Hobbit Holes for. We scored 2011’s War In The North a measly 42 per cent, and since then we’ve had to content ourselves with the passable DOTA tribute act, Guardians Of Middle-Earth – in which the most fearsome enemy to be found was an unreliable server connection. Which, even with Liv Tyler playing the internet, would make for a terrible film.
Raise your ale horns, then, for Shadow Of Mordor which is exactly the sort of sword-swinging Tolkien adventure that kids have been bloodily acting out in playgrounds for decades. Forget Hobbits and drippy elves – Shadow Of Mordor instead deposits you in Middle-Earth as an honestly-not-Aragorn human Ranger called Talion, who in addition to being a dabhand with a broadsword also has the twin advantages of being a) dead, and b) resurrected with a suite of Ringwraith-esque powers. Peter Jackson can keep his Elven bread – we’d already take Talion over six hours of watching Frodo and Sam gaze at each other. Despite releasing alongside the next Hobbit film, Shadow Of Mordor is set outside the timelines of both film trilogies, with Talion fighting his own war sometime between Bilbo’s return to the Shire and Frodo’s leaving it to sigh a lot and not-quite-destroy the One Ring. In fact, getting away from the link to the films was something that developers Monolith made priority one during the game’s inception.
“In the past there used to be ‘movie games’ – they definitely don’t exist anymore,” says Michael De Plater, director of design. “If you’re going to make a game, it’s got to be the best game it can be in its own right. The [message] from the publisher was ‘make the best game you can – don’t do a movie game.’”
Like all characters in the Lord Of The Rings universe who come into contact with the dark powers of Sauron, Talion is conflicted and twisted by anger. Where your traditional Tolkien hero is stalwart and true and making huge personal sacrifices for the good of the realm, Talion is a bit of a bastard. “A criticism I’ve read, even when people talk about Tolkien himself, is, ‘these are just black and white stories of good and evil’,” says De Plater. “But there’s so much more to them than that. There are these fascinating characters, like Boromir and Saruman, like Gollum and Denethor – it’s more nuanced, a lot deeper than people think. Take someone like Boromir – he wanted to take the Ring and use the enemy’s weapon against them. Those were the kind of ‘what-if’ situations and characters [we considered].”
While the details of Talion’s journey are still hidden from the burning eye that floats over Play’s offices (it’s inflatable), we do know that his journey will be one of personal vengeance against Sauron, responsible for the slaughter of his fellow Rangers in a battle at the Black Gate to Mordor (which famously stops anyone from simply walking in). Fortunately, Talion doesn’t walk. Talion sneaks, Talion charges, or Talion summons up his horrifying Wraith powers and sort of teleports like Dishonored’s Corvo. Any of those will get you into Mordor just fine.
Another use for Talion’s spectral powers is scaring the soiled leather singlets off his enemies. We’ve seen him creep up on an Orc guard and use his Wraith powers to scare him so witless he agrees to become Talion’s minion. With an enemy under your command, you can intimidate them into spying on enemy commanders or even attempt a gutsy solo assassination. Whether that’s compulsory or part of a moral choice system, however, we don’t know. All we know is that, according to De Plater, “if you’re going to pursue power and fight against Sauron using his own weapons – fear, domination and seeing into the unseen – there are going to be consequences for [Talion].” Ah, it’ll be fine. Consequences is the watch-word for Shadow Of Mordor. While the developer cites the Arkham series as an inspiration for the game, the unique selling point for the game is its so-called Nemesis system.
With Nemesis, each enemy you’ll encounter on Talion’s quest won’t just have their own unique personality, but also their own memory. Animosity won’t just be something pre-scripted to move the narrative along, as in, well, every other game – in Shadow Of Mordor, Talion is perfectly capable of making enemies without the help of the script writer. If this sounds atypical for a videogame (and we’re not asking – it definitely does), it’s because its roots are in a different form of gaming altogether.
“This will reveal my geekiness, but it really came from pen and paper RPGs,” says De Plater. “When you’re playing those games, the characters that you meet on-the-fly and that the dungeon master has to improvise are the most memorable, the ones that you really care about. Because [on-the-fly characters] that escape or kill the guy you’re after, [they] just become so much more meaningful.”
Once you do catch up to your sworn enemies, the Arkham DNA really bubbles to the surface. As you wade towards your target, you’ll be surrounded by Orcs, dodging and parrying as you go, beating down enemies and swivelling just in time to deflect a blow from the next. Here, you can once again activate your Wraith powers to rapidly flash between enemies, slow time for a precision bow shot, or just enjoy the look of shock on an enemy’s face as his head bounces away from his body. In contrast to the books, Shadow Of Mordor is horribly, gleefully violent.
“The films are actually really visceral,” says De Plater. “Something we have in common with the films more than with the books is wanting to take Orcs and make them more powerful, meaningful and stronger villains. One of the things that I really loved that was added by Peter Jackson was [Orc captain] Lurtz. His fight with Aragorn is awesome.”
‘Awesome’ is a strong word and one we’re loathe to throw around when a game’s still in its alpha stage. Monolith has a lot of plates to keep spinning at once – Assassin’s Creed’s movement, Arkham’s combat, Skyrim’s exploration and of course, the encyclopaedic expanse of Tolkien lore. That said, if that’s a balance that can be struck, it’s as sure a recipe for awesome as we’ve ever encountered.
Rich Wordsworth
