Middle-earth: Shadow of War

1. Summary

Most of the players reaching Shadow of War years after launch recommend it, and some of them paid a few dollars for it in a Steam sale. The Nemesis system is the main draw: procedurally generated orc captains who remember you, cheat death, betray you, get promoted and come back scarred. Reviewers name it more than any other feature, and it turns up in negative reviews too, often as the part they enjoyed. They also like the Arkham-style combat, which makes Talion close to unstoppable by the late game, and the army of dominated orcs they raise and then send against fortresses. Some add that it still looks good and runs well on modest PCs and the Steam Deck.

The second half is where reviewers lose patience. They describe a loop of the same captains, the same forts and the same chores, and some see the Shadow Wars epilogue as padding left over from the loot-box economy that, they note, was later removed. The controls put sprint, climb, vault and dodge on one button and make it hard to hit the orc you meant to hit, and captains stop each fight for long, unskippable introductions. A smaller group report crashes, softlocked quests and fight-pit AI that stands still. The story divides people: some love Talion's arc and ending, while others call it non-canon fan fiction.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

The Nemesis systemHigh

No other feature is singled out as often: the Nemesis system is named in 16% of all reviews. Players praise orcs who carry grudges, return with metal jaws or burn scars after "dying", rise through the ranks after killing Talion, and turn up later as allies, betrayers or bodyguards. "The nemesis system alone makes this worth playing," one reviewer writes. Another says "I don't think I ever encountered a single duplicate orc" over a long playthrough.

The stories it produces are what reviewers pass along: a low-level orc with a speech impediment trained up to legendary ("Nobody will ever make fun of Mug the longtooth again."), a captain shamed until he went insane and then recruited, a slave orc who kept coming back until he became an overlord. The orcs' voice lines and personalities feed into this, and players mention named characters such as Ratbag and Bruz fondly. Negative reviews bring up the Nemesis system as well, often to say it was the part that worked. A minority find it thinner than its reputation, with random names and perks in place of real rivalries, and some note that it relies on the player dying before it kicks in.

Combat and the power fantasyHigh

Players who praise the combat call it fluid, brutal and satisfying, and usually compare it with the Batman Arkham games plus Assassin's Creed climbing. "The combat is by far one of the best in any game I've played," one player writes. Much of the appeal is how far Talion's power grows, which one reviewer sums up as "Day 0 Talion involves sneaking around in bushes, Day 100 Talion involves shadow teleporting into someone's face then summoning a dragon to ride away on." Executions, drakes, graugs, stealth kills from ledges and the higher difficulty modes (Brutal and Nemesis) get specific praise from players who want a challenge. Complaints about the same combat, mostly about its controls, are covered below.

Raising an army and storming fortressesMedium

Players enjoy dominating captains, planting spies among a warchief's bodyguards, and then leading a siege on the fortress. They call it a "creature collector" or "Pokemon with orcs" and like watching their followers fight, betray each other or save Talion at the last second. Sieges in the main campaign are mostly well received. That changes once the forts have to be defended over and over in the epilogue (see the grind theme below).

It holds up years laterMedium

Reviewers who mention the graphics, environments and voice acting mostly say they still look and sound good, and some say it "holds up well and still runs great" on old laptops, mid-range PCs and the Steam Deck. Players also report that the loot boxes and microtransactions are gone and that they play without them. A handful point to the 30fps pre-rendered cutscenes and the 100GB-plus install as signs of age.

A bargain on saleMedium

Price comes up mostly as praise. Reviewers report paying $2 to $6, often with all DLC and Shadow of Mordor bundled, and some call it one of their best purchases ("got this game for 2 euro and it feels like i scammed the devs"). A smaller group say it is not worth full price and that the story DLC and tribe packs were overpriced for their size.

Where players are split

The story and its liberties with TolkienHigh

Opinion on the story splits sharply. Fans like Talion's arc, the growing sense of doom, the memory quests with Carnán and Shelob, and the true ending, and several say it moved them. Critics call it non-canon fan fiction and object to Shelob as a woman, Isildur among the Nazgûl, Celebrimbor's turn, and an ending that hands the ring to Eltariel. Others take issue with the delivery: the story is told in short quests spread across regions, so motivations jump around. "The story is absolutely awful," writes one reviewer who still calls the game a worthwhile purchase on deep discount, and some say they played for the gameplay alone.

Bigger than Shadow of Mordor, but better?Medium

Comparisons with the first game go both ways. Some call the sequel "Shadow of Mordor but better in every way", pointing to more regions, sieges, gear, drakes and a richer Nemesis system. Others answer that "Bigger is not always better": the first game was tighter, darker and more focused, and the sequel spreads the same loop over more hours and more menus. Several recommend playing Shadow of Mordor first for the story either way.

Skills, gear and progressionMedium

Players who enjoy builds like the branching skill tree ("Every skill in the game has 2 or 3 variations like this that allow you to create a fun play style") and the legendary sets. Others dislike that "you can only have one active sub-skill per skill when each skill often has 3 sub-skills to pick from", so abilities that worked together in Shadow of Mordor now need a trip to the menu. Other gripes: a level 80 cap with little to gain past level 40, legendary gear locked behind captains of specific tribes and levels, random gear perks that cannot be rerolled, gem upgrades as busywork, and gear challenges that require odd setups.

The story DLCLow

Reviewers judge the two story expansions differently. Desolation of Mordor, with Baranor as a mortal human with a grappling hook and shield, is well liked. Blade of Galadriel, starring Eltariel, draws complaints about a weaker skill set, captains immune to her light powers and a story that changes the ending ("The Elatrial DLC is a little lackluster"). The tribe packs are mostly called too expensive for what they add.

Captain traits and difficultyLow

Some players love studying a captain's strengths and weaknesses and planning around them, and recommend the higher difficulties for that reason. Others describe captains who stack so many immunities that fights become slogs or feel impossible: "an orc on normal difficulty parries front attacks, dodges all other attacks, is immune to ice, and one shots me despite being below my level." The traits they name include vault breakers, "adapting" mid-fight, Iron Will and "No Chance".

Online conquest and vendettasLow

A minority enjoy raiding other players' fortresses and avenging their deaths. More of what reviewers say about online play is a warning: high-rank online conquests and vendettas are full of hacked orcs with no weaknesses, which one long-time player calls "cheat-coded super-enemies".

What frustrates players

Repetition, grind and the Shadow Wars epilogueHigh

Players who complain about repetition describe a pattern: the first two acts are great, then every region repeats the same captain hunts, outposts and forts, and the open world fills with icons. They single out the Shadow Wars epilogue, where players must defend their forts against escalating armies, grind Mirian to upgrade them, and lose the whole fortress if Talion dies once: "A single death during defense on the last captain = the loss of the entire fort." Several tie this to the original monetization, saying the game still carries "a remnant of a micro-transaction economy that still hinders more than helps the game" even with the loot boxes gone, and a few advise watching the true ending online instead of finishing the epilogue.

Controls, parkour and targetingHigh

Sprint, jump, climb, vault and dodge share one button, so Talion climbs a wall when the player wanted to roll, or leaps into a crowd instead of onto a ledge. Executions, drains and aerial assassinations snap to the wrong orc, or to an ally, and there is no lock-on. On keyboard, keys are rebound in groups: one player found that "rebinding just one unbound 10 others". "The Nemesis system is awesome, but the game controls like a fridge," another writes. Among negative reviews from players with under five hours, controls and movement come up more than any other complaint. Some note that a controller helps.

Unskippable captain intros and interruptionsMedium

Dozens of reviews complain that captain introductions can't be skipped. Every captain stops the action for a cinematic and a monologue, sometimes twice, and when several captains join a fight the intros chain together. Players say it was charming for a few hours, then broke the flow of combat and often got them hit the moment play resumed. "There needs to be an option to turn off captain introductions," one writes; some resorted to a community guide that deletes the voice files. Unskippable slow-motion moments, tutorials and logo videos add to the same complaint.

Bugs, crashes and softlocksMedium

Reported problems include crashes or failure to launch on newer hardware ("Get a beautiful shiny computer that can run the game 5 times and now it wants to crash constantly."), endless loading screens before sieges, story quests that will not progress (the cave with Ratbag, a siege defense that never ends), missed button prompts in combat, Talion stuck in walls after executions, and achievements that cannot be completed. These reports show up more often in negative reviews than in positive ones, and within the negative reviews more often from players past 30 hours than from those who stopped early.

Endless respawns and ambush pile-upsLow

Orcs refill a camp seconds after it is cleared ("come back two seconds later, and it's full of orcs again"), and fights against one captain escalate as more captains, beasts and ambushers appear with no warning. Some enjoy the chaos; others describe being swarmed out of a fight they had planned for.

Fight pit AILow

The fight pits, used to level followers, draw complaints about orcs that do nothing: one reviewer's epic crossbow captain "just sat there waiting for death". Players say level and traits seem to matter little to the result, which makes the pits a frustrating way to train an army.

Denuvo, accounts and install sizeLow

A small number of players hit Denuvo problems (notably on Linux), dislike the WB account and online checks for some features, want an offline mode, or balk at the 100GB to 150GB install. A few also ask for manual saves or a New Game Plus.

3. The player conversation

Most reviews are short endorsements ("Nemesis system", "orc go og og og", "best $3 I've ever spent"). The debate happens in the longer ones, which keep coming back to the Nemesis system, the drawn-out second half, and controls and intros that get in the way. Many negative reviews stop short of dismissing the whole game: they praise the Nemesis system or the combat first and then explain which frustration outweighed it.

Who raises what follows how far players got. In negative reviews from players with under five hours, the controls lead by a wide margin, alongside keybinding, the slow, tutorial-heavy first act and the constant captain intros. Past 30 hours the story and ending come up most, and the endgame details appear: the Shadow Wars epilogue, trait stacking on high-level captains, pit fight AI and cheated orcs online, which the players who stopped early rarely mention. Comparisons with Shadow of Mordor run through every group.

The share recommending the game has held steady, at 91% of 2024 reviews and 89% of 2026 reviews. Many new players bought it in deep Steam sales and frame their review around that price. Players who remember launch mostly mention the microtransactions in the past tense, as something they say was removed but left its mark on the endgame pacing.

4. What the developers could do

1. Add an option to skip or turn off captain introductions. Players ask for it directly, including players who otherwise love the orcs, and say the chained monologues break combat and get them killed.
2. Rebalance the Shadow Wars epilogue now that the loot boxes are gone. Reviewers say the loot boxes were removed, but the fort defenses, Mirian costs and losing a whole fortress to one death still feel tuned for paid boosts, and some abandon the grind before the true ending.
3. Separate overloaded inputs, allow single-key rebinding and add a target lock. Shared sprint/climb/dodge and drain/stun buttons, grouped keybinds and executions that hit the wrong orc lead the complaints in negative reviews from players with under five hours.
4. Fix crashes on modern hardware and the known quest softlocks. Crashes on newer GPUs, endless loading screens and quests that never complete are the bugs players say made them stop.
5. Fix fight pit AI so followers actually fight. Players who use the pits to train their army describe high-level orcs standing idle and losing to weaker ones.
6. Cap trait stacking on high-level captains. Captains immune to nearly everything, with Iron Will and No Chance on many late-game orcs, turn fights into long slogs that even fans of the higher difficulties complain about.
7. Filter hacked orcs out of online conquest and vendettas. Long-term players warn newcomers away from high-rank online play because of cheated orcs with no weaknesses.