This game is on a long timeline for me. I played and loved Shadow of Mordor. I call it the best Assassin's Creed game. And then Shadow of War was released and was riddled with loot boxes, so I passed on it. Then, 9 months later, they removed the loot boxes and microtransactions, so I was back in again. And it's fine. It's more of Shadow of Mordor, which I loved, but there's so much of it. I played about half of it and then put it down for two years because I was worn out on it.
IIRC, the first game had two large maps and two trees full of orcs, and now this one has something like 8 large maps and 8 trees full of orcs. At least four of the maps need to be conquered, which means killing or dominating a bunch of those orcs and going on a siege mission. Siege missions aren't really thrilling things. Your dominated orcs follow you into a fortress where you sit on a point and fight grunts and then move on to the next point. It culminates in a fight with the fortress overlord, where you take on another orc and his bodyguards. I didn't find any of this part particularly fun. It takes away some of the best parts of the game, which are scouting your enemy, stalking them, and then ambushing them when you have a direct advantage. With siege missions, you just walk into a room and fight them.
But I get through those and I get through the large number of story and side story quests and I get to the end of the game. Except it's not the end, there's an epilogue. In the epilogue, you have to defend your fortresses, which sort of works in reverse of a siege. A handful of named orcs and their army are going to run at your points and you have to kill or dominate them. Again, not particularly fun and completely removing the thing I enjoy out of this game. This is also where the loot box grind comes in. My first defense was at a fort that was half of the strength of the invading army.
I have two choices. I can spend more time doing the thing that is fun, stalking and recruiting stronger orcs, or I can spend in-game currency to just level up and enhance the orcs I already have. I think the clear intention here is that some people will keep playing to see the real ending, but they can also shortcut it by buying more in-game currency and loot boxes to skip the grind. And that's real slimy. And all of this is in service to doing something that's not really fun to begin with, the reverse siege missions, which you need to complete to get the real ending. It takes 5 of these defenses to win, down from the original 20 before loot boxes were removed.
I'm left with complicated feelings about this game. I love the Middle-Earth world, though I think the original game served it better. I love the thing that it does right, which is the nemesis system and the hunting of enemy orcs, but I dread the boring sieges and defenses. I like playing the game, but it's so obviously compromised by microtransactions and loot boxes. I was definitely going to Youtube the real ending, but now I'm talking myself into just playing it. It's only five defenses. I've picked up enough in-game currency that I might not even need to do much army building. I don't know if it'll be worth it though, and it might just lower my opinion of the game further. I can't recommend anyone else play this. It took a great game and made pointless additions and changes that ultimately make this a bad sequel.
