What we know about Middle Earth: Shadow of War

Warner Bros’ recently announced Middle Earth: Shadow of War, which is the sequel to the critically acclaimed game Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. As well as an increased map size, and more appearances from characters from The Lord of the Rings universe there have been many other additions. These include the return of the award winning nemesis system, sieges and tribes as well as an addition of new enemies.

Nemesis System:

In Middle Earth: Shadow of War, the nemesis system is the structure that developers, monolith, created to make sure there are endless possibilities for the enemies, the way they act and appear and stories that will grow as they are tackled and eventually defeated.

Each captain, war chief and overload have their own personality, rivalries and traits which develops overtime. The system dictates different; names, tribe, visuals, power levels, army rank, relationship, fighting style, traits and location. It is designed so that no two players games  will be identical.

Sieges:

Introduced by the enhanced nemesis system are fortresses which dote the regions around Mordor and the surrounding lands. Overloads are now found in these fortresses instead of randomly being dotted around the map.

The look and feel of the castle will be altered depending on what Tribes the Overlord is a part of, and their class – as well as their Strengths and Weaknesses may also factor into what defences or traps the fortress holds. Each of the War chiefs will also bring another measure of defence to the table.

In order to start a siege you will often have to have completed a number of quests, normally revolving around the conquest of Sauron’s army. Although you can explore the fortress to learn the lay out and draw out lesser captains.

Talion can also call in specific types of reinforcements, such as; sappers, mounted cavalry, Olog-Hai, hosts, siege beasts, war Draug, drakes and spiders.  Also fortresses will have defences such as; iron gates, stone walls, spouts, reinforcements and war beasts.

 

Classes:

Middle Earth: Shadow of War, also adds new classes to the nemesis system. These new enemy classes are; assassin, beast master, berserker, commander, destroyer, marksman, slayer, tank, tracker and trickster. Whilst not much has been released bout these at the moment it will most likely affect the fighting style of the enemies and the ways in which you tackle them.

Tribes:

Again tribes of enemies have been added, but similar to classes not much have been revealed, only their names. These are; mystic, marauder, machine, terror, feral and warmonger tribes. These tribes and the enemies that are apart of them are more likely to be a cosmetic change rather then having a large effect on gameplay.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War, is released on 10th October 2017 on PC, PS4 and Xbox one.

Middle Earth: Shadow Of War- Shelob reveal

Warner Bro’s recently released a video tease for their latest game Middle Earth: Shadow of War, which is the sequel to Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor.

The game takes place between Tolkien’s infamous books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series. The games follow Talion the Ranger and the wrath possessing him Celebrimbor, in their fight for revenge against the Dark Lord Sauron.

But the most exciting news to come out of the Warner Bro’s trailer was the reveal of the famous giant spider Shelob who made an appearance in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. The trailer shows Talion fighting Shelob, but not much more has been revealed, but it has got fans talking on forums about other Lord of the Rings characters making cameos or appearances after Golem made several appearances in Shadow of Mordor.

Middle Earth: Shadow Of War is released on 10th October 2017, on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

What we want and know from Star Wars: Battlefront 2 announcement

There are a lot of expectations riding on DICE and EA for Battlefront 2 after the flop of 2016’s Star War’s Battlefront. EA and Dice have announced a some of their new features at E3 and have been dropping even more hints since. Below is a list of the new features and what the community hopes they bring.

Customisation:

Not a lot has been announced about the customisation of characters but EA did announce that it would be in the game and that it would be deeper the customisation in Battlefront 1. EA also stated that it would remain authentic to the universes canon, so don’t expect to see storm troopers dressed in hot pink armour. EA has announced that star cards will be making a re appearance but that they wont be as ridged or dictate game play as much as previously.

Battlefield gameplay:

Dice has had a lot of success in recent years with the Battlefield franchise most noticeably Battlefield 1 and Battlefield , creating large scale accurate combat. DICE have brought now brought that to the Star Wars Universe to create all out realist, gripping gameplay ground to air combat and story driven battles. This was all show cased again at E3 with  a demonstration of the Battle of Theed on Naboo between the clone and droid armies. Similar to other DICE shooters, Battlefront is divided into 4 classes, which have been announced as; Assault, Heavy, Specialist and Officer.

Story Mode:

A story mode was also announced at EA’s E3 conference which many fans are excited about since it was painfully absent in the Battlefront 1 game. In the game you play a elite imperial storm trooper captain after the battle of Endor and events leading up to the construction of the first order.

 

 

New features in Assassin’s Creed: Origins

Eagle Vision:

Through out the Assassins Creed franchise Eagle vision has been a key feature that backed up the stealth aspect of the games. Eagle vision allowed for player to highlight and track enemy NPCs even through walls.

Ubisoft have scrapped eagle vision in Origins and introduced Senu – the protagonists pet eagle, that can be controlled similar to Watchdog 2’s drone and tag enemies like the Camera in the Farcry series.

Combat:

Assassins creed combat has also had a huge overhaul in Origins. Previously combat relied on parrying NPCs attacks followed by chaining insta-kills, which enabled players to easily while out large group of enemies.

The new combat system has been described as “free form” similar to the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, with large aspect coming from Ubisoft medieval combat game, For Honour. Combat and weapons can be upgraded similar to assassins creed: syndicate or Farcry 3

To go with the new combat style, there are new weapons as well and a shield and spear have been announced and the bow will make a return after being absent from the series since assassins creed 3.

Another huge aspect added to the combat of origins was the addition of a colosseum like arena where they can test your skills against bosses to win unique weapons or armour.

Missions:

Ubisoft announced at their E3 conference the origins was going to have the largest map yet, being 3 times larger then Black Flags map and 2 times as big as Syndicate. There are also going to be less follow missions but more side missions. There is also the return of naval combat but unlike to Assassins Creed 3 side missions instead of Black Flags base of naval combat.