Shadow Of War: 10 Brutally Honest Impressions You Need To Know

3. Main Missions Are Far Too Restrictive And Fragmented

Middle earth  Shadow of War
Monolith

While the emergent stories that arise from free roaming in Shadow of War are amazing, the actual campaign missions are a disaster.

Far too restrictive in their objectives and goals, the main quests often boil down to simple 'stealth kill x enemies' or 'dominate x Orcs'. There are a few epic sequences that admittedly make it worth playing until the end, but for the most part these major set-pieces are few and far between.

Likewise, while the Nemesis system always feels like an organic part of the world, the actual campaign missions are weirdly fragmented. Instead of flowing naturally, for the most part the game requires you to find floating markers at certain locations in the map in order to activate quests, before being thrown into a loading screen and transported somewhere else.

This presentation makes them feel detached from the actual world of the game, and strangely enough marks them as extraneous to the central experience. If they were integrated better they could have maybe been more enjoyable, but their strange structure results in a stop-and-start style of play that drags the whole experience down.

Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.