At any given moment, the map is awash in threats. Orcs can go on hunts, be ambushed by other orcs, stage executions of human prisoners, hold feasts for their followers, run recruiting drives to bolster their ranks, and so on. It's a little like union bumping: Your enemies challenge each other to level up as time passes, or they level up if they whup you in battle. The game's platoons of orcish plebes, subordinate to powerful captains who guard incredibly resilient mini-boss warchiefs, all care as much about deposing each other and clambering up the game's hierarchical ladders as flushing you out.Īnd the ladders are there for anyone murderous enough to scramble up them: Plebes can become captains, and captains can rise to warchiefs, each a gathering threat to you the game does nothing to mitigate. It's a system Machiavelli and Heisenberg would understand, a cauldron of roiling relationships prone to entropic spasms.

But its hundreds of marauding inhabitants aren't just looping drones: They're pyramid climbers whose aspirations and grievances and strengths and weaknesses evolve with or without your involvement. With its area-unlocking towers and collection checklists, it's probably nearest the Assassin's Creed series. Shadow of Mordor offers that same sense of fastidiously fabricated sprawl.

Rise of mordor