Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor places you in the sixty-year gap between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as Talion — a Ranger of the Black Gate whose family is killed in the game's opening minutes and who is then resurrected by a vengeful spirit. The setup is revenge; the setting is Mordor; the mechanism for delivering both is one of the most influential systems in 2010s action games.

The Nemesis system is the game's signature. Every orc captain and warchief in Sauron's army has their own name, rank, personality, weaknesses and memory. They climb the ranks when they kill you. They hold grudges, change tactics, and bring up your previous encounters in conversation the next time you cross paths. The orc who stabbed you yesterday is a different person from the one who burned your camp last week, and both remember exactly which one did what.

The combat is built on the Batman Arkham series' attack-and-counter rhythm — fluid strikes, parries and combo multipliers that build with rhythm rather than button mashing. Around the main story, side quests, hunts and random Mordor events fill in the open world, and the experience-and-skill system gradually expands Talion's combat and stealth toolkit.

Note: certain online features were retired in December 2020 — Nemesis Forge transfer to Shadow of War, Vendetta missions, leaderboards and WBPlay are no longer available. The Orc Hunter and Gravewalker epic runes that previously unlocked through WBPlay are now awarded automatically. The single-player core of the game — fifty-plus Game of the Year wins worth of it — is otherwise intact.