After teasing its beastly Feral Tribe last week, Shadow of War's latest short puts you in the driving seat. The question is: do you feel like slaying or saving?

That's something you can answer in the following 'Friend or Foe' interactive trailer, which recreates the game's esteemed Nemesis System, and ends by letting you decide the fate of your Follower or Nemesis. 

Upon selection, you'll be whisked off to the game's official site where you'll then view the repercussions of your actions. Look, see:

That there is the work of Hollywood movie people Neil Huxley and Fabian Wagner—who're collectively involved with Avatar, Watchmen and Game of Thrones. Which is also pretty neat. 

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is due October 10. Until then, here's James' words on its spider mercs and singing uruks, and here's some of my own on its fire-breathing dragons. 

We've covered every other Orcish tribe that will appear in Monolith's upcoming alt-Tolkien action game Middle-earth: Shadow of War, so in the interests of fairness I give you the Feral Tribe: "By tooth or by claw, they won't stop until the enemy is hunted down." 

I don't mean to sound at all unenthusiastic. It's just that the more of these tribes that Monolith and WBIE show us, the harder it becomes to tell them apart in any meaningful way. The Marauders like to dance, the Terrors are scary, the Machine builds things, and so it goes. But ultimately, they're all Orcs and related nasty sorts, and they're all quite anxious to clock you in the face with a primitive axe. 

The Ferals appear somewhat more animalistic than their tribal cousins, with a penchant for wearing skulls as helmets and taking wargs as mounts. Their fortress "houses beasts more fearsome than any in Mordor," a Feral rep proclaims midway through the video. "You'll be facing fangs and claws—you'll be devoured!" 

Middle-earth: Shadow of War comes out on October 10. Joe went hands on with it last month, and came away suitably impressed (and on a fire-breathing dragon). 

Middle-earth: Shadow of War's parade of themed Orc tribes continues today with a new trailer revealing the Dark Tribe, a secretive, stealthy clan of assassins that slips silently through the shadows, slashes through enemies like a laser-sharp scalpel, and then slips away into the night before anyone realizes they were there. 

Okay, maybe they're not quite that ninja-like, but everything is relative and relative to, say, the Terror Tribe, these guys are the epitome of surgical finesse. It is kind of an odd take on an Orcish horde, though. Do Orcs have special forces units? Do they use spies and assassins to covertly advance their political agendas? Are they sometimes airdropped behind enemy lines from the backs of Fellbeasts? 

Because that would be cool. 

Along with the Dark Tribe and the Terror Tribe, Middle-earth: Shadow of War will also feature mechanically-inclined Machine Tribe, and the hard-groovin' Marauder Tribe. It comes out on October 10, and sounds like it might be a lot of fun. 

Forthog Orcslayer is not a character that fans of Tolkien's Middle-earth lore are likely to be familiar with. That's because he's actually a new addition to the universe, created by Monolith for the upcoming Middle-earth: Shadow of War to pay tribute to executive producer Mike Forgey, who died of cancer in 2016. 

"Mike 'Forthog' Forgey was our Executive Producer and great friend here at Monolith. He was always ready to leap into the fray and save the game whenever and wherever he was most needed," Monolith said. "We lost Mike to cancer during the development of Shadow of War, and we want to remember and honor him with a little bit of immortality in Mordor. The legendary Forthog Orcslayer is our way to continue having Mike leap into battle and save us when we’re down." 

It sounds like Forthog will work much like Fallout's Mysterious Stranger: When the player is in trouble, there's a chance he'll show up, clean house, and then wander off to wherever, needing no more reward than the satisfaction of a slaughter well done. Studio head Kevin Stephens said the idea emerged from Forgey's real-life willingness to jump in and help out wherever he was needed.   

"The idea of him jumping in to save the day is something we wanted to capture," Stephens explains in the video below (the Forgey segment starts around 10:15). "There's situations where you go down on a knee and you're in your last chance, and you're out of your last chance, and traditionally an orc would kill you, [but] there's the possibility that one of your followers could jump in and save you. And so Forthog Orc Slayer is basically a savior that's just in the world, and if you have this DLC, randomly—it doesn't always happen—but randomly he can jump in and save you when you most need it. That really represents Michael's personality." 

Forthog Orcslayer will be sold separately as DLC for $5/£4/€5, with $3.50 of each purchase made in the US (excluding AL, HI, IL, MA, MS, and SC) going to the Forgey family until December 31, 2019. Middle-earth: Shadow of War comes out on October 10. 

I'm not what you'd call a big Tolkien fan. I read The Hobbit in public school, I enjoyed the movie trilogy, I get the references in most of the memes, and that's about as far as it goes. Even so, I can't shake the feeling that this new "Marauder Tribe" trailer for the upcoming Middle-earth: Shadow of War isn't quite what ol' JRR had in mind when he envisioned the fearsome, ferocious Orcs. 

Maybe it's the bling. Maybe it's the beat. Maybe it's the way they strike a pose and bust a move as they work to demonstrate their commitment to "power" and "respect." It just feels off somehow—the sort of thing that might fit well with, say, Agents of Mayhem, but comes off as out of place in the world of Tom Bombadil.

Then again, Shelob isn't quite the same as I remember her, either. 

The Marauders aren't the only "themed" Orcish tribe on the menu: Previous trailers have introduced the Machine tribe (they make machines) and the Terror tribe (they cause terror). And to be fair to all involved, messing with the source material may not be the worst approach to take. As Joe said in his preview from last week, "When there's this much fun to be had tearing Mordor and beyond apart who's really complaining?" 

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is set to come out on October 10.   

It’s very convenient that the naming conventions of Middle-earth: Shadow of War’s Orc tribes skew a little towards the literal. What’s in a name? Absolutely everything. So it should be pretty obvious how members of the Machine Tribe like to spend their time. 

What a lovely bunch of tinkerers they seem to be! Diligently working away on the ferocious engines of destruction that Sauron plans to use to conquer Middle-earth—you’ve got to respect these hardworking Orcs. Even if they do want to kill and eat puny humans. 

Hopefully we’ll be able to recruit a few of these smarty-pants Orcs before we destroy their keep and slaughter them by the hundreds. 

Speaking of slaughter, Joe, who is normally a nice boy, went on a rampage yesterday and burned a lot of probably innocent orcs with one of Middle-earth: Shadow of War’s fire-breathing dragons. Rude! Feel free to loudly tut if you see him in Cologne.

"Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a violent Tolkien fan-fiction generator," said our James of Warner Bros and Monolith's Lord of the Rings-inspired Mordor follow-up, after going hands-on at E3. The trailers since impressed me with improvements to the game's coveted Nemesis system, reinterpretations of Shelob and, most recently, dragons. 

However it was James' mention of stealth—or, perhaps more importantly, lack thereof—back in June that caught my eye. "My biggest concern going into Middle-Earth: Shadow of War was stealth play getting sidelined for the large-scale combat of the fortress assault missions and a renewed focus on managing uruk forces," said James. "So at E3 when I got free reign over how to spend my time in an entire region, I figured I’d attempt to infiltrate a fort, coax the captain out, and kill him without anyone knowing I was there. Classic Shadow of Mordor stuff." 

James had some luck sneaking into the enemy compound, but in the spirit of exploration I seek to double-down on stealth as much as my hands-on with Shadow of War allows, to see how varied your approach can really be.

At first glance, 'mounted massacre' doesn't strike me as a particularly pro-sneaking mission, but I take it on anyway and am immediately asked to mount a caragor—a sort of big orcy dog beast. I spot three uruks battling one such brute up ahead and decide to hug a line of trees before lying in wait. Cautious to avoid rushing in too soon, I inevitably overestimate my downtime and wind up face-to-face with a wounded beast who clearly ain't for taming. I turn tail and run with my life intact and my azkâr between my legs. 

Before long I've tamed and mounted my own creature of the hunt. I'm prompted to notch ten kills and five "counter attacks while mounted." The former sounds doable without going detected, but the latter is going to require finesse, timely strategy, and—WOW, LANCING URUKS FROM UP HERE IS FUN. Ten? Call it 20, or 30 or 40 as I tear through hordes of great orcs like an Aeglos through butter. Talion butchers his foes with care and precision, and my quest for stealth is well and truly forgotten. Bodies pile up around me and, for better or worse, I feel an enormous sense of wellbeing.

Onto the next quest. 'Tirith' recalls Celebrimbor's march into Mordor at a time when the realm was said to have went to war with itself. "Remember how he flew into battle upon a drake, killing the mighty graugs of his enemies," so reads this mission's briefing and, needless to say, stealth is hardly an option here either. Riding dragon-back into battle as you save your keep from hostile caragor riders, on the other hand, absolutely is. 

Swooping beneath archways and soaring above turrets in bouts of uninhabited flight is a joy, as is isolating targets with the gamepad's left trigger and raining fire upon them with the right. The world burns on my command and I get so caught up in my willful slaughter that I completely overlook one secondary objective that says "0/3 release captured drakes."

In a flash, I shepherd a horde of caragors to their fiery doom at one end of the castle, nip down to free one of my three incarcerated dragon companions, and grin from ear to ear as my newly relinquished serpentine pal takes to the sky before destroying the remaining threat at the keep's opposite end.

Later, I take on Shadow of War's more open set pieces and test my hand at its new 'ring of power' possession feature that sees me flipping enemy allegiances in a BioShock Plasmid-style show of mind control. Drawing out captains from strongholds becomes a lot easier when you've got his minions onside, doing your bidding instead of your aggressor's.  

Prior to going hands-on with Middle-earth Shadow of War at yesterday's NVidia showcase event, the game's director Michael De Plater said: "Every single time you play one of these missions it's about making your own stories." This perfect outlines Shadow of War's scope for nuance and its all-embracing approach to combat. 

In June, James recognised that perfect stealth runs probably don't fit the game's storytelling purview. I now agree—but when there's this much fun to be had tearing Mordor and beyond apart who's really complaining?

Middle-earth Shadow of War is due October 10, 2017.   

Orcs aren't the only nasties roaming Middle Earth, and in Shadow of War you're going to have to confront some real brutes. The latest video shows hero Talion face up to a fiery Balrog (you know, of the famous 'You Shall Not Pass' scene from the films), a tree spirit and what looks like an armoured, camouflaged Caragor.

To defeat them you're going to need more firepower that just a sword, and Talion has just the thing. The trailer shows him riding on the backs of two dragons as well as on the shoulders of a huge ice troll that can freeze orcs in a single breath.

There's no actual gameplay, which is a shame, but it all looks suitably impressive. The orcs are going to be the focus of the game but it won't hurt to throw in some larger enemies now and again, I reckon. What do you think? 

Watch the trailer, first shown during Microsoft's Gamescom presentation, below:

One of the most amusing gulfs between film trailers and video game trailers is that while the former is fairly coy with violence, the latter does not give a single damn crap. Take this new Shadow of War trailer for instance: the amount of Orcs getting brutally maimed, face-smashed and lashed is actually very gruesome. But it kinda slides right over you, it's just more of the same really. 

This trailer showcases / celebrates / threatens with an Orc tribe known as Terror. You'll see why they've got that name when you watch the trailer, but they've got that name for a much more functional reason: they literally spread fear throughout Mordor. Which, if you played Shadow of Mordor already, you'll know has in-game ramifications.

So says the YouTube description: "In Shadow of War, Orcs now belong to tribes, which extend their influence stemming from the Overlords ruling the mighty fortresses throughout the open world, providing a rich ecosystem of missions, exploration and a dynamic Orc society with diverse Orc cultures, all brought to life through the expanded Nemesis System. As master tormentors, the Terror tribe rely on their infamous reputations to inspire fear among their enemies.

Shadow of War releases October 10. Check out the trailer below:

Probably the weirdest thing about the upcoming Middle-earth: Shadow of War is that Shelob, who as I understand it is well-established in Tolkien's mythos as a monstrous, malevolent spider, is in fact a woman. More specifically, a leggy, raven-haired woman with a penchant for whispering in your ear, and who may or may not hold the key to bringing about Sauron's defeat. But Monolith creative vice president Michael de Plater told Eurogamer that this twist in the tale wasn't made simply to get an attractive lady into the marketing materials. 

De Plater apparently considers Shelob and Gollum as "unsung heroes" of Lord of the Rings, Gollum because he's the one who actually (sorry, spoiler alert) destroys the ring and Shelob because she makes the deal with him that enables it to happen. He also said that Monolith draws inspiration from characters who exist in the story's "grey zone," because they're "more human" than the full-on good guys like Aragorn or Gandalf. 

"So you've got Shelob representing darkness and then you've got Galadriel representing light, so you've got a duality between these two powerful women basically opposing each other in the same way that there's a lot of duality in our game," he said. "So we thought those two in opposition are really interesting, and the way Galadriel basically manipulated and sent people off on these different quests [testing the Fellowship with the mirror in Lothlórien] but ultimately left to themselves that quest [to destroy the ring] would have failed. Then you think of Shelob as almost the dark mirror to her, who actually had this minion that... if you think about it in a way, ultimately succeeded." 

He also noted that while Shelob is evil, she's at least honest about it, unlike the guys who sent the Fellowship off on a quest that they knew was all but doomed right from the start.   

As for exactly how she's able to change forms, Shelob's mother was Ungoliant, an evil spirit who took the form of a spider—and to de Plater's reckoning, it was her choice to take that form, and thus she can take other forms if she wishes. As her daughter, Shelob shares the same ability and can thus choose to assume other forms as well.   

De Plater surely has a firmer grasp of Tolkien's tales than I do, but even so this seems like a real reach—almost like the decision to create Sexy Shelob was made and then a justification found, rather than the other way around. It's also a little hard to reconcile this shapeshifting ability with her great age and entirely spider-like behavior outside Shadow of War's narrative. Being a giant spider would no doubt come in handy at times, but would you want to spend centuries on end in that form if you didn't have to? 

Anyway, there you have it: Shelob is an attractive lady in a slinky dress because she can be and wants to be, this one particular time. (Chris, meanwhile, informs me he prefers her in full-on spider form—he even married her that way in a Lord of the Rings mod for Crusader Kings 2.) Middle-earth: Shadow of War is set to come out on October 10.