Officially announced last month with a mouth-watering cinematic trailer that even Peter Jackson himself would be proud of, Warner Bros. has finally released the first gameplay for Middle-earth: Shadow of War, and there are a whole 16 minutes of it for you to drool over. Of course, we knew such a thing was coming, thanks to a laughably short teaser released earlier this week, but now we have the real thing, and boy, does it look brutal. Developer Monolith productions is certainly upping the ante for the sequel to Shadow of Mordor, not least with the many different approaches afforded to players in approaching any given objective.
Marking the return of both Talion and Celebrimbor, Shadow of War follows the man and elf tag-team’s attempts to turn the tides of war against the evil dark lord Sauron. Returning as a core component of gameplay for the sequel is the Nemesis system which, as the trailer so elegantly explains, will be made up of Overlord leaders of different territories that will be unique for every single player. The example in the trailer shows Talion venturing inside an Overlord’s personalized fort to defeat it, itself accompanied by a horde of peons that will attempt to hinder your efforts.
Followers, loot and resources are yours for the taking upon conquering the fort, which itself can be utilized to train your army in order to take the fight directly to Sauron himself. Oh, and we should probably mention that Talion can now ride dragons for an easier time of traveling across the plains of Middle-earth. Fancy. There’s heaps of stuff shown off in the footage that we’ve not touched upon here, but we’ll let you check it out for yourselves above.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War is set to release August 22 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.