Shadow of Mordor is shaping up to be one of the most exciting upcoming new IPs, which could develop into a truly great branch of Middle-earth Tolkien lore and exactly what that universe has needed in terms of games.
Developers Monolith Productions are focusing purely on a single player experience as to not take away from the game. That means they’ll be able to focus on a tightly crafted (and seemingly inspired by Assassin’s Creed) open world experience, which features an intriguing system where your enemies remember you from one battle to the next.
“Alas, no co-op” read the developer’s twitter account, as you can see in the tweet below:
@TobiasKarlsson_ Alas, no co-op. Shadow of Mordor is being crafted wholly as a single-player experience.
— Shadow of War (@shadowofwargame) January 23, 2014
Monolith previously developed Guardians of Middle-earth, a MOBA-style game which worked very differently from this, so it’s interesting to see them go single player only.
Shadow of Mordor will release on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC later this year. You can see a recently developer gameplay walkthrough here.
bunimomike
Ah, co-op would be great but understand the focus on single player. I watched a lovely interview with Adam Sessler talking to one of the top bods over at the studio and the game is filling me with anticipation. I really liked the bit where foes remember you from previous fights and the dialogue reflects that. Felt very inclusive and contextual.
Blair Inglis
It’s just so alien in game terms, as from aside a few examples (God of War 2 being the main one), you always kill enemies the first time.
bunimomike
I’d like to see more of this. It creates a far stronger emotional connection and investment when the grudge has been created in-game as oppose to told to you in a cut scene.
It’s very AC: Black Flag with the climbing around (in the beginning) but it soon fleshes out nicely into its own thing. Decent looking graphics too.
bigchrissyc
Looking forward to this. Im glad they havent tacked on a pointless multiplayer component, just for the sake of having multiplayer in a game.
Eldur
I think I’m going to wait until Shadow of Mordor: Brotherhood.
MICKY17
Never been a huge fan of LOTR based games but this sounds really good. Very good news to hear about single player only too.
tonycawley
Loved that walk through video, intrigued me. Had never heard of it before but it’s now become one of my most anticipated! Some of the gameplay mechanics sound excellent.
gazzagb
Co-op would have been awesome, but the game still sounds great.
Starman
This looks brilliant, and kudos for not tacking on multiplayer.