Instead, she does some missions for already pretty friendly ones in order to get them on her side. The Blade of Galadriel actually plays fairly similarly to the main campaign, the only difference being that Eltariel will not dominate Orcs.

The Definitive Edition contains all the paid DLC as well, the meatiest of which are the two campaigns: Blade of Galadriel, featuring elven assassin Eltariel, and Desolation of Mordor, featuring Gondorian captain Baranor. You can ignore these bits, and just do the main story missions instead, but not taking and defending your forts means you don’t get to unlock the “true ending”.Įlven Assassins, Soldiers of Gondor, and Outlaw Orcs And then Sauron’s forces try to retake the fortresses, so you end up spending a lot of time taking and defending and re-taking fortresses (especially in the Shadow Wars portions at the end). You spend most of your time killing orcs, or dominating them with the New Ring to fight on your side, and taking over fortresses across Mordor. Because Talion cannot die, every player death is treated as part of the story, with the Orc who killed you gaining prestige and levels, and taunting you with that death the next time you face him. The truly revolutionary bit is the previously mentioned Nemesis system. The game plays like a fairly standard RPG, with XP and skill points to be gained, as well as better weapons and armour. Celebrimbor lends Talion his cool wraith powers as well as fashions a New Ring to get even more cool powers.

You play as the ranger Talion, who has the ringmaker elf wraith Celebrimbor (pronounced “keleˈbrimbor”) piggybacking on his soul.

The main campaign in the game is an interesting addition to the Middle-earth mythos. There were also some new skins, skill tree additions, gear system upgrades, and progression updates. The free updates that came in the wake of the microtransaction removal were tweaks to the Shadow Wars portion of the game, in which Sauron’s forces attack your various fortresses, and the Nemesis System, in which Orc captains that you fight and/or kill and/or flee from and/or die against remembering you when next they encounter you in the world (sometimes even actively hunting you and ambushing you when you’re busy trying to kill another orc captain).

Shadow of war fortress upgrades