14 DAY TRIAL // Monolith has released a series of videos offering a behind-the-scenes look at the development process of the upcoming action-adventure video game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.
The videos explore the challenges that the development team encountered while creating the AAA video game, and share some of the excitement of creating something genuinely new, based on one of the most beloved fantasy franchises in the world.
The game is set before the events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, following a fallen ranger who has been given a chance at vengeance by a wraith bearing a grudge against Sauron. The ranger Talion will exact his revenge on the orcs who killed his family, while wreaking havoc in the armies of a budding Dark Lord.
Creating something unique
The devs at Monolith describe how they attempted to make something entirely new in action-adventure video games, in the form of the Nemesis system.
In a burst of creativity, the team decided to forgo the usual approach of having players follow a pre-determined path, and instead of having them go through the motions of a scripted campaign, they enabled users to carve their own path and write their own story.
"You're not navigating your way through a set of stories, or encounters or missions that someone else has created, you're actually creating those yourself, through gameplay, through existing in this world, through interacting with these characters," the game's Director of Design, Michael De Plater, explains.
The various unique enemies in the living world of Mordor all have their own desire to achieve greatness, and they want to do so by capitalizing on your mistakes, so they're also actively seeking to take you down, just like you're actively looking to put their lights out.
Exciting Wraith powers
The revived ranger is imbued with the essence of the elf Celebrimbor, due to the fact that both of them suffered a similar fate, losing their family and being killed, and they both decide to use their newfound power to destroy the Dark Lord Sauron.
"You have the ability to interrogate orcs and dive into their minds and learn what their different strengths and weaknesses are, like stealth or fire," Rocky Newton, the game's art lead, points out.
Players can also exploit the relationships of specific orcs to the other characters in the world, like picking off lieutenants that support a bigger orc chief in order to make him easier to kill, or even turn them against him in order to help you achieve your goal.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is coming out on PC on September 30 worldwide, on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on September 30 in North America and October 3 in Europe, and on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 18 in North America and November 21 in Europe.
