10 Best New Video Game Franchises Of The Decade (So Far)

8. Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor

shadow of mordor
Monolith

What do you get when you cross Batman: Arkham with Assassin's Creed and place it in Middle Earth? A pretty stellar game, actually.

Whilst far from the first game based on the Lord of the Rings franchise, Monolith Productions' surprise hit of 2014 is a testament to portraying film licenses well in the medium, turning in an impressive release that managed to push genre boundaries, whilst at the same time adhering to the tried and tested gameplay of third-person action adventures gone by. The end result was a game that held an undying reverence for J. R. R. Tolkien's lore, as well as one that felt confident enough to carve out its own path within the mythos.

It was a little strange that we saw no mention of Mordor's sequel at E3, but here's hoping Warner Bros. are saving an announcement for somewhere later down the line.

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.