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In the grand and miserable act of homogenisation that is open world game design in the early 2010s, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is as guilty a project as any Assassin's Creed or Far Cry. It presents an amalgam of now-frayed ideas lifted from its close (if thematically dissimilar) rivals. There are the equidistant towers, that staple of Ubisoft's greedy stable, which, once scaled, remove the fog of war from a portion of the map to reveal another psychically draining nest of side-quest markers. These vie for your attention, hoping to distract you from the game's core missions and thereby artificially bloat what would otherwise be a slighter game. There's the overlaying task of hunter-gathering, in which you collect herbs and animal carcasses as you roam this sodden land (who knows how such a harvest can flourish under a sky of almost unanimous grey), either to create potions of varying usefulness, or to fill out a checklist of collectible items. There are the bases, which must be assailed, and the alarms therein which, when rung by an enterprising Uruk, summon fortifying reinforcements. There are the Caragors and Graugs, Mordor's take on Red Dead Redemption's wild horses, which can be tamed and ridden into battle or retreat. Then there are the moment-to-moment familiarities: the ability-unlocking levelling, the exploding barrels, the grisly stealth kills or, if you prefer a more direct approach, Batman's flitting, countering combat. Max Payne/ John Marsden's time-drawl special effect also makes it into a list of ingredients that should, by rights, create nothing more than a limp pastiche.
Even the literary source material, used to bring narrative context and sense is arguably fumbled. Rather than mimicking Tolkien's talent for coming-of-age stories (those quests that carry a young man from innocence to haggard triumph), protagonist Talion begins his journey in the fug of tragedy (his wife and child's murder provides the blunt justification for your one-man terror campaign) and ends his journey in the hollow aftermath of revenge, emerging unchanged by the experience. The racial subtext of Lord of the Rings has been oft debated. Shadow of Mordor reflects some of its substance. If this is not a game about ethnic warfare, then it can easily be seen as a game about class warfare (every Uruk was apparently born within the sound of the Bow Bells and could merrily moonlight in Fagin's gang). And if not class war, then Talion's good looks (a screen-pleasing meld of Aragorn and Jon Snow) and the Uruks' comical unattractiveness (the pinched faces, stretched ears and shark-bead eyes) make this at least a war on ugliness.
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