It's a testament to the strength of Monolith's orcs that they can even survive being stuffed into loot boxes, a fate more ignominious than anything Talion metes out with his swords. In a follow-up piece to his review, Andy Kelly noted that the presence of loot boxes hadn't really bothered him during his Shadow of War playthrough, largely because having them be loot drops made little sense in the first place, and the boxes never felt remotely essential.
I felt the same way, and it's just as well because he was also correct about the orcs being by far the best thing in the game. The game's actual star, Talion, remains a largely unloveable, uninteresting character—essentially a thrift store Aragon. There's some fun to be had from his unhealthy codependency with Celebrimbor, and I didn't even mind the sexy spider lady thing, but you don't play Shadow of War for grand narrative sweep. You play it to hear orcs run their mouths before you run them through.
The sequel's crop of greenskin were even funnier than their predecessors, from the bard who will hunt you down and sing to you to the pitiful mewling wreck that's left behind after too much shaming. But as before, the best orcs are the ones who weave their own stories into your game. In my case that of course meant Mozû the Blight, the source of pretty much all my pain and enjoyment in Shadow of War.
I'll spare you a repeat of the Tolkien-length backstory and just say that being crushed over and again by Mozû made me more angry than any other game this year. Which, given that my two other main games are Destiny 2 and Hearthstone, each of which is a different sort of salt factory, is really saying something. For a short while my obsession with avenging myself on Mozû burned brighter than both of them.
Actually, I am the boss of you
Such was Mozû's domineering presence, that when the fucker finally succumbed to my (as it turns out, fairly obvious) plan to gank him with a bunch of poison-bladed buddies, I legit felt his loss immediately. Without the prospect of Mozû rocking up suddenly with a "RAAAAAAAAAANGER! REMEMBER ME?", grinning from ear to ruined ear, the game lost a lot of its piquancy, and I didn't feel compelled to stick it out for the final round of fortress sieges and light Nazgûl bothering.
Shadow of War, as an experience, definitely suffered from trying to do too much. Seeing each region map open up with so many collectibles and side missions felt somehow draining in a way that wandering around Mordor in the first game didn't. I did like a lot of the additions individually, though. There was enough depth in the skill tree to make builds that felt distinct and fun, levelling up legendary gear sets always scratches an itch for me, and the actual siege sequences were exciting the first couple of times through. That said, it didn't seem to make much difference how you composed your army, and made zero sense that all of your troops wouldn't follow you into the throne room for the final fight.
My favourite moment actually came as part as one of these occasionally tricky battles. I'd lost a couple of times to another orc with an unfortunate set of perks and his aggressive entourage. Down to a sliver of health and staring at a third death, one of my trusted lieutenants suddenly flew into view in classic get down Mr President style, but rather than taking the hit for me, he chopped off the chieftain's head, immediately securing the fortress for me.
Of course I handed him the keys and a promotion. Maybe some players would've been annoyed by the AI interceding at such a crucial moment, but for me it was a rush. In a game about building up a vast force of brutal killers, you better believe I want them to do something of genuine worth when I actually need it.
When the third Mordor game inevitably starts taking shape, I hope Monolith is able to somehow triple down on making which orcs you choose for your superteam an even more meaningful decision. It's equally telling that, for all we've written and talked about it, I still don't think any other developer—bar perhaps Firaxis with XCOM 2's War of the Chosen expansion—has been able to create computer-controlled antagonists that seem so gloriously alive. At least until your buddies turn up with the poison shivs.
Just under three weeks ago, WB Games announced Middle-earth: Shadow of War would receive five free updates before the end of the year. Scenarios in Endless Siege and Rebellion arrived on November 21, alongside its Enhanced Photo Mode. Today marks the arrival of Online Fight Pits—Gladiator-esque combat arenas wherein players can train their followers.
Cue rivers of blood, tortured screams and the occasional flash of dismemberment. Meet Ar-Gul the Merciless:
"This is the reigning champ," says the narrator-cum-ring announcer above. "He's risen through another player's army, gaining new skills and stats with each pit victory. He's bloody, he's hungry, from the Slaughter Tribe: Ar-Gul the merciless."
Ar-Gul goes to toe-to-toe with Bork the Destroyer there, but when you're playing online it could be any other orc by any other name (with the exception of Mozû the Blight—as Tim will tell you, that asshole orc is dead).
"Online Fight Pits allow players to train up their Orc followers by pitting them against Uruks and Ologs from other gamers’ armies around the world," so says WB Games in a statement. "Through this ultimate fight to the death in the arena, players can earn powerful rewards and upgrades that can be used to improve their army and continue the battle for Mordor. "
Middle-earth: Shadow of War's Online Fight Pits update is available free-of-charge today. Here's our review of the base game.
Update: Beginning at 4 pm PT/7 pm ET today (November 23, if you got here late), Fanatical will kick off a day of hourly Black Friday Flash Sales. The deals will be revealed through a live feed at fanatical.com, or you can check in on the Flash Sales page when it's convenient. The games will be on sale for 24 hours after they're revealed, or while supplies last.
Original story:
As the name suggests, Black Friday doesn't officially kick off till the end of this week, however that hasn't stopped certain sales sites getting in sharp. Fanatical is one such outlet that's ahead of the curve—having launched its Black Friday Sale a full four days early, live now through Tuesday November 28.
With limited-time deals running every 24 hours, day one kicks off with Middle-earth: Shadow of War's base game subject to a 40 percent discount (£26.99/your regional equivalent), and its Gold Edition privy to a 30 percent reduction (£55.99/regional equivalent).
Elsewhere today, CI Games' Sniper Ghost Warrior Trilogy is going for 80 percent off, as is the Metro Redux Bundle. Batman's latest Arkham outing, Arkham Knight, is subject to a 66 percent sale price, while Disgaea 2 is 40 percent less its RRP.
The likes of Dead Cells and Conan Exiles start discount periods today which run through the next seven days, too.
Fanatical adds: "We'll have over 1,000 live deals throughout the sale… from Monday, we will be running a 10 percent discount code too, BLACKFRIDAY10, which can be used on all titles except for the [sale's] 24 hour Star Deals."
Endless Siege is a fortress-defending scenarios that pits players against Sauron's forces amid the Endless Siege, while Rebellion has you taking rebel Ologs and Uruks to task. Moreover, Enhanced Photo Mode lets you "capture every battle and siege and apply new filters, frames and textures", whereas Online Fight Pits has you challenging other players' Orcs followers in a gladiator-style duel to the death. A new 'Brutal' difficulty ups the stakes—more challenging than Nemesis, "with no last chances."
The first three of those five are due on November 21, Fight Pits is expected December 5, and the new difficulty setting is due December 12. This tweet from WB Games suggests there's more free stuff to come in 2018:
The right-hand column there sheds more light on the arrival of Shadow of War's premium DLC this side of the new year, with the Slaughter Tribe and Outlaw Tribe set to arrive on November 21 and December 12 respectively. Again, more on those can be read this way.
All of the that is packed into the Middle-earth: Shadow of War Expansion Pass, which costs $40/£32.99. Individually, all DLCs cost £11.99/your regional equivalent, bar The Desolation of Mordor which comes in at £15.99.
Our boss, Tim Clark, is killed innumerable times by Mozû the Blight, a fearsome and relentless orc while playing Middle-earth: Shadow of War.
"He's immune to arrows, fire, ice, quickly adapts to being vaulted over, and regularly emits disorientating howls,"wrote Tim. "I am being bullied, and it feels bad."
Humiliated, Tim asks for help from orc-slaying members of the PC Gamer community, and even developers of Shadow of War itself.
In death, Mozû finds unlikely supporters among the PC Gamer staff, becoming an honorary member of the team, as well as the default avatar for PC Gamer commenters.
Mozû the Blight may be dead, but he can live on as a symbol. That's where you come in.
2) Make original art OR memes/propaganda posters using our existing art (above) featuring Mozû the Blight.
3) Submit your stuff to evan@pcgamer.com with the subject line "RIP Mozû." Please enter by November 20, 2017 at 11:59 PM PT.We'll select some winners to receive one of the prizes listed above.
Here's an example of the sort of thing we're looking for:
A sample piece of propaganda, created by Moz sympathizer and PCG features editor Wes Fenlon.
To give you a head start, I commissioned two artists, Federica Litrico and Tida Kietsungden to create portraits of Mozû. You can find full .PSD and high-res JPEG versions of these assets in the Mozû Art Pack (ZIP). You can use these great illustrations as the backdrop for your propaganda.
My recent run-in with a particularly egregious orc named Mozû might have led you to believe that Shadow or War's enemies have the upper hand. But the truth is Talion is more cruel than any of the greenskins, as evidenced by this video which seeks to answer the question: What happens if you perpetually shame an orc, rather than finishing it off?
Shaming is a mechanic in Shadow of War that enables players to forcibly level down an orc. The point is so that you can eventually recruit an orc which has a nice set of perks but is currently too powerful for Talion to dominate. Or, as YouTuber NoahDLC discovered, you can do keep doing it, over and over again, just to mess with the poor orc's head.
In the video embedded above, we see a level 17 orc named Garl Cannibal get repeatedly shamed. As he plummets through the levels he goes from being a typically cocky, loquacious orc to soon begging for death, whining that "the other orcs won't stop making me fun of me." Then it gets really nasty. As Garl, who at this point has lost his cannibal moniker, bottoms out at level 1, his mind breaks and he's reduced to a gibbering, mewling, sobbing mess.
Once Garl's head has gone, it's actually pretty distressing to watch. Or hilarious, depending on your sensibilities when it comes to orc welfare. No doubt PETA will weigh in with an opportunistic petition shortly, but for now if you've got one annoying orc you want to punish, this is clearly the ultimate payback.
Ranger! You thought Mozû was dead, but no. Are you trying to hide from Mozû, playing with your 'friends' in Destiny 2? Ha! Don't make Mozû come over there.... Tell you what, though. Mozû knows your problem. You're simply not equipped for this job.
What you need is help optimizing your PC for Shadow of War. Mozû has been running tests, and Mozû is feeling generous today. Here's what you need to know to fight Shadow of War's orcs with the best possible performance.
The first thing you need to know is that the only mods you're going to be able to run will be memory hacks, like if you want to change the field of view from the default.
Do you prefer keyboard and mouse as your weapon of choice, or do you use a controller? It doesn't matter—Mozû will kill you regardless. But both will work, and you can customize their key/button mappings as you see fit. You can even run on an ultrawide display if you think that will give you an advantage, though cutscenes and videos will be cropped for 'artistic' reasons.
When all of that inevitably fails to defeat Mozû, try to improve your skill level, aka framerates. The main way to step up your game is to adjust your settings. Higher fps is critical so that you can't blame your next death on stutters and lag. And if you want to run with the ultra quality crowd, that may require investments in new hardware.
Here's some benchmark data to help you out. (Yes, Mozû likes statistics—it was his minor at the Orc Academy!) But first, let me tell you about the local blacksmith, MSI.
Choose your weapon (aka hardware)
MSI has provided all the weapons of war used for testing. There's a full range of options, from your short and stabby bits like the GTX 1050 and RX 560, to legendary equipment like the GTX 1080 Ti and RX Vega 64.
If you're interested in more freedom of movement, MSI also offers a special category of weapons called "gaming notebooks," and Mozû tested the GS63VR with GTX 1060, GE63VR with GTX 1070, and GT73VR with GTX 1080. Mozû knows how you like to jump and climb around, so these might be exactly what you're after.
Don't neglect your armor and ring of power, either. MSI has several different motherboards offering varying levels of protection, which work with a variety of Core i3/i5/i7 and Ryzen 3/5/7 processors. Mozû suggests that you stay away from budget processors—no more excuses! Core i5 and Ryzen 5 are the sweet spot for most rangers.
Shadow of War benchmarks
Let's start with basic training first, which we uruks like to call 1080p medium. There are even weaker foes like 1080p low and lowest, but have some dignity! You shouldn't even need epic loot to take down this foe, so you can save a few Mirian by purchasing weapons forged by the blacksmith's apprentice. The baseline choices consist of the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti, and the RX 560, and there are even some slightly battered and rusty R9 380 and GTX 970 swords available.
Strictly speaking, you only need 30 fps to get by in the land of Mordor, and any of these cards will do. But then you run into Mozû, and you start to think 'getting by' isn't enough. The GTX 970 and above will give you a much better chance of survival, delivering smooth framerates of more than 60 fps, and the GTX 1060 and above will push you over 100 fps. At that point, it's just practice, practice, practice. Or you can look at taking on more challenging foes and try to make a name for yourself.
The ultra tier foes are another level of difficulty entirely. You'll want 4GB VRAM to stand a chance, and anything less than a 1060 3GB will result in occasional trips and missteps. Those can be fatal, and only epic level weaponry like the GTX 1070 and RX Vega 56 will push you past the 60 fps mark. And if you're looking at a 144Hz Palantír (aka display), you might need to drop down to high quality to maximize the accuracy of the visions it sends.
I'm not sure why we're even talking about 1440p ultra. Me and my blood brother, we could tackle such a beast, sure. But you, on your own? Fat chance. You'd need at least a Vega 64 or GTX 1080, and something tells me you've been spending all your Mirian on fortifications and loot instead. Bumping down to high quality is an option, if your equipment can't quite tackle 1440p ultra.
Little known fact: Sauron's nickname is '4k ultra.' Every time he stares into his Panaltír he mumbles, "The visions are not clear… I need 4k ultra!" Of course we never call him that to his face, as the witch king long ago gave up his sense of humor. He's more machine than man now, and what machine wouldn't want higher resolutions? Sauron loves pushing his hardware to the limits.
To be clear, there's no way you can defeat Sauron, at least, not with a single sword. The only chance you might have is to dual wield GTX 1080 Ti's in SLI. You've never heard of that? Ha! That sort of weaponry isn't the kind of stuff elf lords and wizards like to talk about. The unbridled pursuit of power is Sauron's domain, and 1080 Ti SLI would be as foolish as forging a new ring of power.
Yeah, you've already done that. Idiot! And look where it got you. Now Shelob's trying to cozy up to you, and you know that's not going to end well. Also, SLI only tends to help at 4k with GTX 1080 Ti, or 1440p and above with GTX 1080.
You can see that the benefits of dual 1080 Tis only go so far, but then 4k displays mostly top out at 60Hz for now. You'll have to struggle with managing two weapons now, and that can require some fancy footwork. To avoid tripping up, use a G-Sync Panaltír so that dips below 60 fps don't cost you your head.
What about those lightweight notebook swords mentioned earlier—was that a twinkle in your eye as you contemplated scaling up to the Haedir with one of these strapped to your back?
The good news is that these can nearly equal their full-sized brothers—or at least, the better ones can. 1080p medium goes down like a training dummy, as usual, but you'll need at least the mobile 1070 or 1080 to take on 1080p ultra 60 fps. With G-Sync, you can even go for 1440p ultra, but avoid scaling Mount Doom with one of these if you want to battle Sauron (4k ultra) on his home turf.
What about you armor (aka CPUs)?
You've got weapons, but what about your armor? The truth is, your armor and ring of power aren't nearly as important as you might have thought. All your prancing and climbing and hiding won't do you any good unless you know how to swing a sword on occasion. The best defense is a good offense, so get a legendary sword from the forge as your first step. But having a little extra protection can help when you want to dominate orcs and weak-willed uruk-hai.
Even Core i3 and Ryzen 3 suffice, though not necessarily for the toughest foes. At 1080p medium, there are clear benefits from the Intel fabricated rings of power, at least if you're wielding 1080 Ti. Slightly less epic swords all start to feel the same—you can see this at 1440p ultra, where there's little practical difference between the various armaments.
How is it that your armor and ring affect your combat efficiency like this? Don't ask Mozû—he'll just start punching stuff.
Customizing your settings
Mozû likes to keep things simple, but maybe you want some additional details on how to fine-tune your equipment. Fine! Even Mozû hates stutters. Follow these tips, and don't say Mozû never did anything for you.
Graphical Quality (Lowest/Low/Medium/High/Very High/Ultra): A quick way of configuring advanced options. You can roughly double the performance at low versus ultra, slightly more on the lowest setting, but the visual tradeoff can be equally significant.
Lighting Quality (Low/Medium/High/Ultra): Changes the number of active lighting sources. Dropping to low can improve fps by 30 percent but does compromise image quality. The medium setting is a more reasonable compromise between quality and performance.
Mesh Quality (Low/Medium/High/Ultra): affects the number of polygons used at various ranges, so ultra as an example swaps out lower meshes three times the distance as medium. Dropping to low can improve performance by eight percent.
Motion Blur (Off/On): One setting we almost always recommend disabling, as the added blur doesn't really make a game look better. Turning this off will net you six percent higher performance.
Anti-Aliasing (Off/FXAA/TAA): post-processings to eliminate jaggies, which is less intensive (and less accurate) than MSAA. FXAA is effectively free (1-2 percent performance hit), but doesn't do as much. Disabling TAA (temporal AA) can improve performance by eight percent.
Shadow Quality (Low/Medium/High/Ultra): directly controls the texture quality for shadow maps. Performance is eight percent higher at the low setting, but medium is a better target that still looks good without impacting performance too much.
Texture Filtering (Low/Medium/High/Ultra): sets the anisotropic filtering level. Ultra is 16x and low is 1x, with low being about four percent faster.
Texture Quality (Low/Medium/High/Ultra): improves texture resolution and details but needs more VRAM. Ultra requires the HD texture packs and looks the same as high, mostly. If you have enough VRAM, low is only six percent faster than ultra, but on cards with only 2-3GB stick with high.
Ambient Occlusion (Off/Low/Medium/High): another option affecting shadows, this controls the number of rays cast when calculating screen space ambient and specular occlusions. Turn this off for up to 13 percent higher framerates, but with a flatter overall appearance.
Vegetation Range (Low/Medium/High/Ultra): controls the number and range of vegetation, but in testing this didn't make a difference either way.
Depth of Field (Off/On): blurriness for the sake of realisms and cinematic effects, again this didn't affect performance in testing.
Tessellation (Off/On): utilizes displacement mapping for more organic and natural looking objects. The amount of tessellation appears limited, as turning this off didn't impact performance (though that might not be the case with older GPUs).
Large Page Mode (Off/On): this option says you need to run in Administrator mode (and enable the 'lock pages in memory' option via gpedit.msc if you're on Windows Pro), but even doing that this option failed to work.
So, ranger, Mozû hopes when next we meet, you won't have to depend on sheer numbers and cowardly poisons. A few parting words, if your puny mind is interested in such things. All of Mozû's weapon testing was done on MSI's Aegis Ti3, a lethal arsenal equipped with an overclocked i7-7700K, 64GB RAM, and plenty of solid state storage! Additional tests with alternative armor was conducted using MSI motherboards for sockets LGA2066, LGA1151, and AM4. All testing was done with the latest Nvidia and AMD drivers available at the time of testing, Nvidia 387.92 and AMD 17.10.1. (Mozû got distracted for a bit, so these tests are a couple of weeks old.)
Come, ranger… Come back to Middle-Earth, and come back to Mozû. We have unfinished business. Yes, Mozû knows about assassins and their creeds, stone castles ordering wolves, calls to duty, and other evils lurking within. But you know, deep down, that we are destined to meet again. I'm coming for you.
Following my brutal battle with Mozû last week, I am sorry to report that he has yet to reach out from beyond the grave to resume hostilities. It seems that in Shadow of War, my green whale no longer swims. I did receive a visit from his Blood Brother, but he was so disappointingly weak that I won’t bother you with the details of how he died. This was not an orc worthy of Mozû’s name, but I have found others who might be.
Or, more specifically, our readers have. As part of Mozû’s obituary, I asked for stories of your most troublesome tormentors. And it’s safe to say you delivered. Some themes are common: the Death Defying perk, limbs being replaced by crude-but-brutal prosthetics, and the annoying grins as they savage you for the dozenth time. The winning story, in particular, is a doozy, and wins a Chroma Base station and Kraken 7.1 V2 headset thanks to the wizards over at Razer. Now, let’s meet the orcs...
Entries edited for length and clarity.
Orc: Daz the RipperReader: Andrew PatersonThis bloody guy is the bane of my existence. He’s the friend of a certain plot-related character, and he interferes in EVERYTHING I do. Graug hunt? Shows up and one-hits me. Finally gain enough might to do an execution? Immune to executions. Plus, because he’s a commander, he summons a million bloody orcs to hide behind and chip away at my health. He has the Death Defying, Arrow Proof and Enraged by Injury perks. I can’t kill him. And that’s not even starting with the insufferable grin he has at all times.
When I finally do kill him I will probably just stop playing the game. Because absolutely nothing will compare to that moment.
Orc: Gimûb the MachineReader: Chris DavenportThis lovely legendary chap has now bested me in combat on four separate occasions. That's bad enough, but what's worse is he refused to kill me every time. Instead he just shamed me and walked away. The third and fourth time this happened my cousin was sitting with me, and I felt burning real life embarrassment. One of the most annoying things, other than Gimûb’s ability to counter my executions, was the fact that he’s a legendary—so I wanted to recruit him. But each time he shamed me, his level kept going up. After quite a bit of him shaming me, and me shaming him, I finally got his level down to mine and recruited him.
As a reward for being so hardcore I have entrusted a fortress to him. This is one overlord I could really do without stabbing me in the back. I guess if he does though, my most epic orc saga will continue.
Orc: Hoglik the ElusiveReader: David RossThis is Hoglik. He’s has been a thorn in my side for about nine encounters, but only killed me recently while I was capturing a screenshot to send you (because keyboard/controller swapping is a mess). He started off as Hoglik, Glory-seeker—low-teens, level-wise, coated in gold armor, just another orc I figured. Nope.
Hoglik died but quickly came back. And again. And again. Each time losing a piece of his gilded armor until he became Hoglik the Elusive. He’s now added smoke-bombs that he drops when fleeing, which when combined with Arrow-Proof made him tricky to get hold of.
One time I thought I’d finished him for good after he showed up in an ambush with three other captains. But he defied death again, vanishing out of the execution sequence.
On one occasion he surprised me while I was mopping up a region. I was too low level to recruit him, so I figured I should Shame him. Bad move. He took the outpost immediately around me, became legendary as Hoglik the Unashamed, and came at me redoubled. I still haven't finished the tale of Hoglik, but he’s long since become the star of the game.
Orc: Pushkrimp the BloodyReader: HairiI am on nemesis difficulty and he has killed me more than five times now. I managed to kill him last night when was at level 15—chopped off his arm, leg, and then head. Later, I was fighting two other captains and he ambushes me. “Surprise! Remember me?” LMFAO. The little f***er.
Orc: Tarka the TorturerReader: Marc Zakharia
Marc sent in an absolute wall of text about how Tarka the Torturer betrayed him and eventually returned as Tarka the Machine. Here’s how the story wrapped up...
I still shudder at the thought of an orc so hellbent on revenge that he went out of his way to be rebuilt. I frown at the thought of how much pain he faced only for it to come to a bitter and inevitable end. Takra the Machine suffered the loss of two brothers over the period of our skirmishes. 1) His blood brother, which sent him on the path of vengeance, and 2) me, the guy who took him in after a brutal siege and ensured his safety.
What was once a simple-looking orc with a standard helmet came back ready to eat metal and shit nails. He is my Mozû, and he is why I am so wary of the allies I make now.
Orc: Pâsh Flame of WarReader: John WatersPâsh has been a thorn in my side since before Minas Ithil fell. He began as the lowly Pash the Tark Slayer after landing a lucky blow on me after I’d already fallen once in combat against a captain. I snuffed him out soon after, sending an arrow and my regards through his skull. A while later he ambushed me sporting a new helmet. I set him on fire and forgot about him again. This time Pâsh came back almost immediately, renamed The Flame of War and sporting burns that made him look like he’s still smoldering. I dispatched him again and joked about it with my friends.
After taking my first stronghold, I'd almost forgotten about my buddy Pâsh. I stopped in Minas Morgul to check in on him and he was kicking around at level 29. "Cute," I thought, and ventured out to complete my conquests elsewhere. Pâsh must have caught wind of me checking out the place, because he followed me to the new zone and ambushed me. Pâsh was now more agile and has developed the ability to use fire bombs. Worse, he no longer gives second chances. He put me into last stand and promptly jammed a spear through my chest. Classic Pâsh.
But he's not done yet. Before my body is cold, he challenged the Overlord of the zone so that I now have to spend the rest of this map plotting to take him down. To rob me of any joy of getting my revenge on him, he's made my vengeance require hours of actual work.
Orc: Bûbol the MachineReader: SpektreThe first time I met him I was a lowly level three Talion, trying to make my way peacefully through Minas Ithil. Then I was attacked by a level six Bûbol. Once he had adapted to both stunning and vaulting, I died pretty quickly. Overcome by anger, I immediately started the revenge mission. An intense battle ensued, which ended with me slicing off Bûbol 's arms. I was extremely happy for the next twenty minutes, until I was ambushed by Bûbol. He had come back as a level ten legendary, covered in metal, and banging on about how "I created him." This time I killed him by cutting him in half.
The next day (in real time), I booted up only to find Bûbol had cheated death once more. I sliced him in two again, but half an hour later Bûbol was back, having cheated death for a third time. He ambushed me and this time I died. I jumped straight into the revenge mission, killing Bûbol by cutting off his fake arms and a leg.
Just prior to emailing you, I was ambushed for a fourth time by Bûbol, who just refuses to stay dead. This was our most epic battle yet, involving an Olog Hai captain and three other Ologs. Sadly Shadowplay refused to capture it, but I have to assume it won’t be long before Bûbol puts in another appearance.
WINNER
Orc: Bûbol who WatchesReader: Taylor Sanderson*breathes deeply*
My own personal Mozû has really lived up to his assassin title. When we met he was ten levels above me, but it was less his immunities than his abilities that gave me so much trouble. Specifically: his deadly ranged attacks and the "No Chance" trait, which prevents last-second escapes from mortal blows. Time and again he would pick me off as I tried to flee or find a source of health. It was as if his throwing spears were homing missiles.
Dying to one means the fight is over instantly. He even gets to taunt me before finishing me off without my being able to do a darn thing. Again and again. He even did this in the middle of a bloody siege, losing me the battle and half my army with it. I tried to savescum I was so mad.
After rebuilding and a having a second go at that siege (successfully), I found Bûbol tied up, alone for once, in a nearby cave. I guess that's what being on the losing side of a war is like. So I mercilessly sent my two lead orcs and a caragor to shred his body. While he did get in some last words, that was the last I saw of him. I only needed to kill him once, but managing it was quite the ball ache.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War is now two weeks old, within which time Tim rather dramatically fell out and settled the score with the late Mozû the Blight. Now, Warner Bros. has detailed the Tolkien-flavoured action role-player's Expansion Pass, and the four slices of DLC heading its way in the coming months.
Due at some stage next month, Slaughter Tribe Nemesis invites the titular faction to Mordor—"brought to life through the Nemesis System"—alongside Legendary and Epic Orcs with new missions, gear, upgrades and challenges. As of December 2017, the Outlaw Tribe Nemesis DLC does the same for the "most rebellious warriors in Orc society".
Into the new year, the Blade of Galadriel Story Expansion has you playing as Eltariel—"an elite assassin known as the Blade of Galadriel"—and going toe-to-toe with the Nazgûl. Here, expect new combat abilities, skills, gear, eight unique Legendary Orcs, character skins, and new story campaign, among other things. That's due in February.
The Desolation of Mordor Story Expansion, on the other hand, is due in May 2018 and will put players in charge of Baranor—"the Captain of Minas Ithil and survivor of the city’s demise". Another new story campaign, you'll unite with Dwarven Hunter Torvin, craft powerful new gear and hire mercenaries to create a human army capable of toppling a new desert region named Lithlad. "Fight to survive in Mordor as a human without the power of a Ring," says Warner Bros., "or a wraith to cheat death in a new rogue-like campaign mode."
Here's a trailer:
All the above is packed into the Middle-earth: Shadow of War Expansion Pass, which costs $40/£32.99. All DLCs cost £11.99/your regional equivalent individually, bar The Desolation of Mordor which comes in at £15.99. Warner Bros. adds: "In addition, periodic free content updates will be available to all players."
Mozû is no more. I would like to tell you he died a death befitting his orc supervillain status, or that my revenge has given me some measure of peace. Neither of those things are true. The truth is that the final moments of Mozû the Blight have disgraced us both. This is how it went down…
After the original post detailing my humiliating struggles with the over-buffed orc captain, I got plenty of advice from other Shadow of War players on how to turn the tables. Many suggested enlisting a drake (not the rapping kind) to roast Mozû from above, while others shamefully proposed finding a way to knock him off a cliff. A developer at Monolith who wrote much of the orc dialogue even DM'd me on Twitter with some cockamamie plan involving poisonous spiders exploding from a bonfire.
I figured he was probably on Mozû's payroll and ignored that idea.
The plan takes shape
Two nights ago, Mozû ambushed and defeated me again, despite the fact I was wearing a poison-resistant cloak in a bid to mitigate the effect of his bombs. This victory raised his level to 33, and made me ditch my policy of only fighting Mozû mano-a-orco. The answer to beating an asshole bully is to find a bigger group assholes, and so I began a recruitment drive. I hunted and dominated the most powerful orcs I could find, in particular looking for those with poisoned weapons in order to exploit Mozû's only significant weakness.
Last night I felt ready. Thanks to some time in the fighting pits, my motley crue of greenskinned scum ranged from level 22 to 26. Individually, nowhere near as strong as Mozû, but together? We had a chance. I queued up the Nemesis mission as usual, but this time issued kill commands to my three best orcs.
Narûg the Reaper: My highest level orc, with a nasty trick up his sleeve.
Snafû King-Slayer: Missing one arm but wields a poison axe with the other.
Kûga the Obvious: Mounted on a caragor, which can't hurt for crowd control.
I also assigned Ishmoz of the Spiders to be my bodyguard, who I could summon just before the battle, partly because he attacks with poison weapons, but mainly because the dude wears a hood of cobwebs and I figured Mozû might not be about that life. This particular mission was designated a supply raid, and I arrive to find Narûg confronting Mozû and his crew. I am immediately struck by an inadvertent piece of planning genius on my part. Narûg has the Decoys perk, so is always accompanied by three doppelgangers to confuse the enemy. Sure enough these help tie up Mozû's retinue perfectly.
Tallion looks away in shame as his orc buddys go to town on a poison-covered Moz .
We all wade in and holy shit Mozû is immediately coated in gloopy green poison. In fact, pretty much everyone is poisoned, but the key thing is Mozû is already at half health. I join the fray and land a few lusty blows. In the chaos a grog barrel explodes, taking out a couple of Narûg's body doubles, but I ignore the inferno and keep swinging. This is it. Mozû is finally on his knees. He makes a little speech about how I've got my revenge at last, up comes the finish him button prompt, and… I whiff.
In my excitement to take some of those swanky Ansel screenshots, I accidentally switched from controller to keyboard and mouse. Mozû makes his exit. An on-screen icon tells me he's now about 2,000 ft away, so I set off in pursuit. When I arrive I realize my mistake. My bodyguard is on cooldown and I haven't set up my other orc ambushers either. I make a decent fist of the fight, getting Mozû down to about a third before his poison bombs do their deadly work. And now he's level 34.
This defeat actually doesn't feel too bad because I know I can correct those mistakes. More importantly, I know know he can beaten. Excited, I set up another Nemesis mission with the same team, this time letting Snafû take point to really ram the advantage home. The mission generated is a duel, and the bad news for Mozu is that we will most certainly not be observing Queensbury Rules. In fact it's more like a scene from Oz. My guys jam Mozû against a wall and set about shanking him. His health is shredded in seconds. I sprint over trying to get the final blow, but am still a few feet away when the slo-mo kicks in."Snafû King-Slayer killed Mozû the Blight." It's over. He's gone.
One of the boys inspects Moz 's corpse, probably thinking something existential.Here lies Moz , gone from us too soon. Sleep well, poisonous prince.
The orcs go back into their idle animations and start to disperse. Mozû's lies on the ground, the legendary sword he dropped floating over his now inert body. Instantly I feel like this was a huge mistake. Mozû's death should have been more spectacular. I needed to hear him spit out some final words before I made like a deranged sushi chef on his limbs. I already know that the rest of my playthrough will be robbed of the electric tension I felt when taking every step in Mordor, knowing that the big sack of shit could put in an appearance at any time.
But just as I'm almost overwhelmed by unexpected melancholy for my dead tormentor, I remember Mozû's speech from that first failed kill prompt. "You might think you've beaten me, ranger, but wait until you meet my brother." Of course! Mozû has the Blood Brother perk. That means that somewhere out there his sibling is plotting revenge, and it's bound to be terrible.
I pray with all my heart that his brother is called Bozû, and that I meet him soon.
Tallion and Snaf have won today, but nervously await the arrival of Moz 's bro.
