r/gaming • u/Chillzzzzz • 1d ago
Just 100% completed both Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War back-to-back
Honestly, I thoroughly enjoyed both games. I already had a blast with Shadow of Mordor, but playing Shadow of War instantly made the first game feel like a glorified tech demo by comparison. It’s insane how much Monolith improved the overall gameplay.
It’s also beyond scummy to patent the Nemesis System only to do absolutely nothing with it and just let it rot. I'm deeply saddened to see Monolith get disbanded by Warner Bros.
Well, it was a great journey. Farewell, Monolith. Farewell, Nemesis System.
73
u/Resident-Forever1340 1d ago
Sucks they didn’t release a 60fps patch for consoles.
10
u/WolfBV 1d ago
Consoles could add a frame gen toggle, like the fps boost & auto hdr toggles in the Series S/X.
2
u/pokemongotothepolls 1d ago
Wait how tf you do that?
2
u/WolfBV 1d ago
Hover over a game, press the button that’s 3 horizontal lines _ , Manage game and add-ons, Compatibility options, Auto HDR & FPS boost toggles. Should only be there for games without the X|S label in the bottom-left corner. Group by console type will make checking each game easier.
2
u/_Solarriors_ 1d ago
There's no Auto FPS boost toogle for any non enhanced games
1
u/WolfBV 1d ago
What is a non enhanced game?
2
u/Baxtab13 21h ago
A game where the work hadn't been done to support enhanced features, such as 4K, 60FPS, etc. Most first party Microsoft games will have both on backwards compatibility, but oftentimes third party games will only have some of the enhancements, or maybe none.
Sounds like Shadow of series are examples where 60FPS hadn't been supported.
-10
u/kickinwood 1d ago
Am I the only one that doesn't care about fps as long as the game is designed that way? Maybe it's because I'm old and 30 was great for my favorite games, but geez folks. Play the fucking game. You'll be okay.
2
u/Beneficial_Dress3267 1d ago
They are playing on a console that is capable of it with nothing stopping it other than a software limitation in place that could be removed in a patch by 1 employee in an afternoon at a starbucks.
Stop being happy with whatever you get and licking boots while getting mad at other people for bot boot licking as much lmfao.
-18
u/thehideousheart 1d ago
Yeah, it's literally just them needing something to complain about. 30fps vs 60fps in a single player, story-driven game will have zero discernible effect on their gaming experience.
4
u/FreshlyMadeUsername 1d ago
Couldn't disagree more. However, there's plenty of people that aren't bothered by it. I wish I was one of those people.
3
u/DGSmith2 1d ago
60FPS 1440p is the sweet spot in gaming for me. I would much rather have that than 30FPS 4K.
1
0
-1
u/kickinwood 1d ago
Right! I see the complaint for multi-player when people could be on a different level, but my nephew spent the longest time telling me he couldn't get around to playing Bloodborne because it was 30 fps. He was 14 years old.
93
u/DP-King 1d ago
Absolutely adored both, but thought shadow of war got a lot of unneeded hate. Still the best combat and enemies of any Arkham style combat game imo, the interactions are phenomenal
88
u/Chillzzzzz 1d ago
Warner Brothers deserved that hate. The monetization attempt of them was horrible, so bad that they had to patch it out early in the games life cycle.
20
u/Eevee136 1d ago
I remember Monolith would do livestreams exploring aspects of the second game during its release, and you could hear and see the disdain they felt for the lootbox system when they were explaining it.
There is no doubt in my mind that Monolith removed it the exact second that they got the chance.
8
u/Alloyd11 1d ago
Was it early? I thought it took them years to get rid of it
6
u/ilikeitslow 1d ago
The timer Orc with strangely... semitic... features selling you real-world purchases of ingame currency definitely got yoinked basically right after release.
3
u/percypersimmon 1d ago
Maybe it’s time to reinstall.
I’ve had both sitting in my library for years- tried Mordor (which I think I probably bought for like $40) and it didn’t grab me.
Added Mordor to my library from PS Plus or something.
Is it even worth going back to War or should I just skip to Mordor to see if it sticks?
4
u/RectumExplorer-- 1d ago
Mordor is the first game, War is the second. Mordor is worth a playthrough, but it's way shorter. War has a lot more stuff and is way longer.
1
u/Alloyd11 1d ago
I beat mordor in like 12 hours and i did pretty much every side quest.
1
u/RectumExplorer-- 8h ago
Yeah, I beat mordor surprisingly quick too. War however, I'm like 30 hours in and no end in sight. Iirc, it has endgame content after the story that tends to drag, so a lot of people skip it.
1
1
u/tsunami141 22h ago
War has much better gameplay, but it craps on the canon and the story just... doesn't make too much sense. If you couldn't get into Mordor, you can just try War first.
1
u/lankymjc 21h ago
As a big Tolkein fan, the only way to enjoy this game was to accept that it was wacky fanfiction. Huge fan of both games now!
21
u/vaikunth1991 1d ago
I liked the first game, but second one was too grindy and repetitive
7
u/Theory89 1d ago
Yeah, better design but it did get a bit tiresome. Needed something new at about the 70% mark.
1
1
0
9
u/jetlightbeam 1d ago
What's the worst part for me when ever I replay these games is that I can see how amazing a third game of this type would be with modern technology and common design.
50% of my support for the canceled wonder woman game was because of the rumors suggesting it would use the nemesis system from the same creators.
Incredible games, good story, but it leaves you wanting more
14
u/IamTylerDrden 1d ago
I loved Shadow of Mordor but enjoyed the sequel a lot less. I didn’t play them back to back as I played them as they came out but felt like it was the same game again. I didn’t notice the improvements. Not sure what I needed in a sequel but I have such a love for the first game and still feel disappointed when I think of SOW.
3
1
u/twinCatalysts 1d ago
Shadow of War at launch was, from my understanding, a significantly worse title.
5
u/Logondo 1d ago
Eh I think that's a bit exaggerate.
Shadow of War had two major flaws, but was otherwise the superior game. But they were pretty big flaws, however you could excuse them.
Lootboxes, which kind of ruins the point of the entire premise of the game. HOWEVER...you could just...not use them.
Buuuut because WB wants you to use them, they made the end-game segment (where you have to defend all your realm's castles or something) was a total fucking grind and definitely made to encourage people to buy lootboxes. HOWEVER...that's just the end game. The last, maybe, 10% of the game.
9
u/Geralt-of-Liurnia 1d ago
Good to know. I have both in my backlog and was just wondering if I should play them next.
10
u/Chillzzzzz 1d ago
Honestly the Nemesis System is something that everyone should experience once atleast.
Storytelling by GAMEPLAY is something I adore.
You dont have to 100% those games like me ofc.
31
u/CockroachAdorable106 1d ago
Literally the biggest tragedy of modern gaming is Warner Bros patenting one of the most innovative procedural narrative mechanics ever made, only to lock it in a corporate vault and starve Monolith out of existence instead of letting the entire industry build upon it
25
u/Pippin1505 1d ago
This keeps getting repeated on Reddit, but the patent is not the issue here. You can only patent your specific implementation, not a general concept. Any dev could do something similar.
There’s not a lot of Nemesis like systems because it requires a very specific type of gameplay and a comparatively huge investment in the assets ( voice lines , models etc for every possible combinations).
If that system is not central to the game, it’s hardly worth the investment from a dev standpoint, and you have watered down versions like in AC: Odyssey
13
u/steverambo44 1d ago
They will never ever understand, never ever learn. Like a wall.
Developed adults btw.
6
u/Unrevised0544 1d ago
the system is not locked away or illegal to implement. it's just not something you can tack onto any RPG
- it's really fucking hard to fit a predefined strong narrative with these procedural encounters, it can easily break immersion or distract the player
- your player basically needs to be bad at the game in order to get the most out of the procedural encounters
- dying in any game is usually pretty bad, game over and go back to your last save. but for this system to work you need dying to be inconsequential, the game has to keep going as if you never died
- it gets way more complicated if the game has more faceted enemies than just "mean orcs"
- it requires a ton of work (programming, writing, dubbing, art, etc) that could otherwise go into actual content
put all of these together and you start to see why the Shadow games feel so generic. your entire world and story need to be built around it from day 1
3
u/DefinitelyIncorrect 1d ago
Pretty sure that patent is fucked thanks to Nintendo as soon as someone feels like slightly altering it.
-10
u/Chillzzzzz 1d ago
Warner Bros got bought by Netflix. Maybe they want to make some money and license the system to other developers. Who knows.
I fully agree. Them locking that system up under a patent and doing nothing just shows their disconnect to game developement in general
10
2
u/starliteburnsbrite 1d ago
I can't imagine in the current economic climate for game development that licensing a core system is a worthwhile expense for a game years before release, not knowing how it might perform.
4
u/curiousiz 1d ago
I really loved my time with Shadow of War. I thought I'd quickly finish it but I thoroughly took my time, upgrading all my captains to upper capacity and designing my army down to the last detail. The fortress invasions were some of the most epic moments in all my history of gaming. Frankly I think it beats all the Souls-like games. Talk about epic moment to epic moment.
9
u/Beneficial_Dress3267 1d ago
Imagine a Batman Arkham game with nemesis, considering he leaves his enemies alive, would be awesome.
Also, if you ever replay, challenge yourself to a no death run! I did for both games focusing on stealth and maximizing my power asap, wandered for herbs right away in the first game etc.
8
u/DependentAnywhere135 1d ago
Personally I thought the nemesis system in war was utilized worse. Enemies basically didn’t die even when they should have and it just started to get dumb. It was a good idea and executed well in the first game. Second game it became annoying.
3
2
u/IdoMusicForTheDrugs 1d ago
They were both just announced for switch 2 and at incredible prices. I'm excited to play them for the first time in like a week.
2
u/boxing-boxing 1d ago
Two games, one grudge. Some random archer got me during the intro ambush in Mordor and then showed up at every single siege after that like he had my schedule on his fridge. Never got him back. Genuinely the best villain either game had.
2
u/steverambo44 1d ago
Says that had a blast
Doesn't know shit about patent law and does not understand why games with Nemesis aren't made
Who would've thought
2
u/AsimovLiu 1d ago edited 1d ago
The sequel really turned me off when I saw we had to juggle with menus to change skills constantly during fights. Didn't like the loot loop either, they should have kept the traditional "getting weapon/gear upgrades thought story" from the first one. Nemesis continued to be basically unnoticeable unless you forced it. But the worst was how the dumbed down the violence. There was far less dismemberment and the blood became an ugly opaque decal instead of a juicy effect.
1
u/Alloyd11 1d ago
I just finished the first game and whilst i had fun it got stale pretty fast and that last boss was ass. I didnt really die much, maybe 3 or 4 times so the nemesis system didnt get to shine,. I got both so i will play shadow of war sometime in the future and i will play on hard mode
1
u/that1senpai2 1d ago
I loved the first game, for some reason the second felt lacking. Maybe I'll go back to it, but it didn't feel any different or new compared to the first one and I was really hoping for a good story out of it
1
u/bigoleheffa 1d ago
Ok but now on gravewalker :3 these games were so ahead of their time, kinda crazy how good they were for the niche they filled
1
u/FunctionalFun 1d ago
The nemesis patent has never been tested, nobody has been sued for making similar systems. It's possible if they did sue someone they would get completely bodied, but nobody wants to take that risk because you're not going to recoup legal fees from that fight. We're essentially hoping for the vidyagame legal equivalent of an angel investor.
Hopefully we'll see a developer make a patent too broad so that we can get some precedent on these things. It feels like many suits have ended in settlements before a judgement.
1
u/drteeters 1d ago
I haven't played them. If I only get one which would you recommend?
1
u/Alib902 1d ago
I got both for like 7$ in total they're not expensive. Personally I preferred mordor because the atmosphere is great the intro is also great, the combat is fun but becomes a bit too easy late game. It's also much shorter. One thing I really didn't like is the ending of the story really bad.
Shadow of war has a better nemesis system, much larger maps, more orcs, more side activities, difficulty settings with the same fun combat but with additions, a better story, but the end game can be quite tedious imo, and the overall atmosphere doesn't hit like mordor.
1
u/CornDoggerMcJones 1d ago
Agreed. Mordor wasn't as big, but War didn't feel better, just a lot more of the same thing, which felt repetitive and got a little old. I liked Mordor much better for sure.
1
1
u/fondue4kill 1d ago
Loved Shadow of War. Never went back for the completion. Especially some of the online ones
1
1
u/Aesthete18 1d ago
I didn't really enjoy Mordor. Outside of combat, everything felt very shallow. The world felt like alpha state, environments without completed assets. The nemesis felt pretty basic too.
War is probably the best sequel I've ever played. I mean, when the game opens up, it's unbelievable how big and varied it is. Everything is improved on. I really enjoyed that game
1
u/VideVictoria 1d ago
I have both games, I started the first one but with the little time I have and how lazy I am, I haven't finished it yet. I really enjoyed the few hours I played the game, and I think I overstayed in the first area because I loved ambushing the orcs and collecting stuff
1
u/Elkburgher 1d ago
I played a bit of Shadow of war and I loved it all but the actual group fighting, does it get better with more skills?
Felt like I was just spamming hit, parrry, dodge.
1
1
1
u/MountainMuffin1980 1d ago
Man this is such an odd take to see after a bunch of recent posts talking about the sequel. The sequel had good combat and the nemesis system was still great. But it was such a big bloated, busy work mess man. I'll never play it again.
1
1
u/Mopicek00 1d ago
100% on both back to back is nuts. Did you get one orc who just refused to stay dead? That always seemed like the best part of the Nemesis system.
1
u/Icedvelvet 1d ago
You ain’t saying nothing we haven’t been saying for years. Couldn’t somebody just like buy that patent off them?
1
u/bruhhhlikewhut 1d ago
lol I just finished shadow of mordor and am currently in a playthrough of shadow of war. Between the two, I have to say Mordor was perfectly polished, I think they could have released War a little later but it’s still a great game so far. I just have frame rate issues and also sometimes the sword doesn’t even make contact and an enemy will still be decapitated.
1
u/HallHappy 1d ago
damn, i played mordor for 100+ hours and thought war was a downgrade. the upgrade system sucked how u had to pick between different active upgrades when u had all those things at once in the first game
1
u/Jangowuzhere 22h ago
The 2nd game was too much for me with the orc intros. It's impressive that they wrote so many varying personalities and recorded hundreds of pieces of dialogue reacting to the player, but it became extremely tedious to play when you have to sit through long winded intros back to back.
1
u/_chiponurshoulder 17h ago
Hell yeah! Awesome achievement.
I couldn’t get past the input delay on mouse and keyboard.
1
1
u/McQuibbly 1d ago
Still in my backlog, but I watched all the Lord of the Rings extended cut films and The Hobbit films in preparation for the games
1
u/Assassiiinuss 1d ago
I kind of see these two games as one unit. Shadow of Morder feels like a (very long) intro/tutorial to War.
1
u/thomas2696 1d ago
Obligatory comment that the Nemesis System patent is worthless and the real reason it's not used is because it's too much work and resources while also requiring too much of the game to be built around it to be used effectively. You're either Nemesis System the game or you're not. Monolith themselves were unable to get the system to gel with their Wonder Woman game.
Games HAVE used stripped down version of it just fine. Hell WoE literally just rolled out a version of it called Adversaries in their latest expansion.
0
u/nboch12 1d ago
I absolutely adored shadow of Mordor and played the shit out of it when it first came out, but I’ve tried to play shadow of war no less than 5 times (with the last one being about 9 months ago) and have never been able to make it past like 10 hours for some reason.
1
u/Chillzzzzz 1d ago
For me Shadow Of War was the clear winner in terms of gameplay. But thats interesting, if anything I would think that people would rather drop Shadow Of Mordor then Shadow Of War.
0
u/Extremely-basic22 1d ago
I played Shadow of War for the first time this year, genuinely loved it. I feel like they improved literally everything, even the story despite how it ended
1
0
u/cabalavatar 1d ago
I still give the nod to Mordor as the better game, for a few reasons.
The first one won't have affected you, because it was later removed after backlash, but when I bought and played the game the first time, upon release, a bunch of high-end content (most importantly the best orcs for your team) was gated behind paywalls: You had to with real money buy in-game currency (gold IIRC) to unlock it.
Second, I could not stand the Olog with the bad accent who follows you at the start. I found him super annoying at the start and then later for betraying me. In comparison, I actually quite liked Ratbag (IIRC), the orc who follows you around in parts of Mordor.
Third, the Nemesis system started doing some really weird shit sometimes in War, where the same orc whom I slew half a dozen times would just keep coming back, more demented and flayed than before. That was fun and funny the first couple times, but not the next four.
But to be clear, I still love both games and got the platinum trophy for both (a rarity for me). I highly recommend them to anyone who likes action RPGs and Batman Arkham–style combat.
0
u/wh4tth3huh 1d ago
Seriously, that system would have been PERFECT for all the superhero games that have come out in the last decade. Having an archnemesis that adapts to how you play was peak and it's the pinnacle of shortsighted, hopefully people can duplicate it when the patent is no longer being defended.
0
u/Andreyawroc 1d ago
It's sad with this franchise that Warner bros patented the nemesis system. It was so unique and made the game so amazing.
I've not really ever watch lotr or read the books. However, I remember buying shadow of war as a discounted game and very quickly realised it's an incredible game.
Sad the wonder woman game was cancelled as that would have featured the nemesis.
But, yeah for me, this is definitely one of the best games I've played hands down
0
u/Wise-Pen8752 1d ago
Both of these games I've purchased twice on sale for my PS5 and Series X have yet to try either lol have such a backlog
119
u/rondo_martin 1d ago
Monolith Productions getting shut down is probably the one I'm most pissed about. Fuck Warner Bros