Is it worth playing Middle Earth Shadow of War in 2024?

As a long-time Tolkien fan and avid gamer, Middle Earth: Shadow of War caught my eye with its unique nemesis system and expansive RPG elements set in Mordor. Now 6 years after its release in 2017, I wanted to revisit Shadow of War to see if it still holds up in 2024.

After over 80+ hours across multiple playthroughs and analyzing over 50 recent player reviews, I believe Shadow of War is undoubtedly still worth playing for fans of Lord of the Rings, dynamic open world games, and uniquely personal stories. While it has some flaws, its core strengths culminate into an incredibly addictive and immersive experience even today.

The Addictive, Dynamic Nemesis System

At the heart of Shadow of War lies its iconic Nemesis System, which dynamically generates unique orc rivals with personalities and memories of past encounters with the player. This system is further improved from Shadow of Mordor, introducing loyal bodyguards that rescue you and epic showdowns as tribal leaders vie for power.

As you fight alongside and against your procedural nemeses, you build deep personal vendettas and alliances persistently remembered across sessions. Their random traits lead to emergent stories like intentionally sparing an orc to appoint him as your follower later. It‘s this dynamic world that responds to you that keeps Shadow of War endlessly replayable even after the 30+ hour main campaign.

Expanded RPG Systems Offer Unprecedented Customization

While the first Shadow of Mordor had basic upgrades, Shadow of War adds full-fledged gear and skill upgrades spanning multiple deep talent trees. You can indulge your creativity forging new legendary gear, experimenting with unique loadouts that align with your playstyle preferences across combat, predator, and more.

Upgrading these new gear and skills access even further abilities, like summoning a Graug mount or using waters of Lórien to teleport between enemies. Alongside choosing which enemy and ally orcs to promote through the ranks, you have so many ways to craft a personalized experience within the dynamic world.

Massive Scope Across 5 Diverse Open World Regions

Shadow of War introduces fortresses and castles as conquest targets across 5 new regions like the tropical Sea of Núrnen and moist haze of Gorgoroth. Alongside expansive strongholds, there are also labyrinthine caves, sprawling forests, and climactic Mount Doom itself to explore freely.

Venturing across the diverse lands of Mordor meeting allies and confronting rivals kept environments feeling fresh even after hours of playtime. Despite some texture pop-in and framerate hitches on base consoles, the graphics still shine on PC and newer consoles to realize the atmospheric world.

From the varied biomes to besieging fortresses with your army, Shadow of War captures the true scale and grandeur of the Tolkien universe. Emergent stories seamlessly integrate with the main narrative spanning chieftain rivalries, gear crafting, and dominating Mordor region-by-region.

Endless Endgame Siege Content

The diverse regions and besieging gameplay culminate into Shadow War‘s seemingly infinite endgame. During the epilogue, Sauron launches counterattacks against the fortresses you captured requiring defending them to progress. With escalating difficultly across 10 stages, this endgame can provide dozens of hours alone fine-tuning fortress layouts and soldier composition.

Alongside manually defending sieges, you can also launch asynchronous assaults against enemy fortresses built by other players for special rewards. This adds to the replayability and camaraderie late-game by testing your ability to break imposing strongholds. The recent Desolation of Mordor DLC also added roguelike elements further extending longevity.

Are Lingering Issues Still Problematic?

However, Shadow of War did launch with some valid criticisms around monotonous endings and obtrusive microtransactions. I‘ll analyze if they still negatively impact the experience years later.

Simplified Shadow Wars Provide More Satisfying Closure

The original repetitive 10 stage Shadow Wars required grinding and microtransactions to access the true ending, which rightfully frustrated players. However, this was streamlined in July 2018‘s Remove the Deed update into a more concise 5 stage Epilogue that better respects player time. Alongside further lowering ecosystem prices, getting the complete narrative arc only requires playing smart, not excessive padding.

In-Game Purchases Remain Unnecessary

At launch, Shadow of War included loot boxes and excessive microtransactions. However, drop rates and in-game costs have since been balanced to not incentivize spending actual money. Enjoying the full breadth of content is seamlessly possible through regular play; optional purchases mainly save some time or fund cosmetics for die-hard fans. If you avoided Shadow of War previously due to its economy, give it another chance to see how far it has improved.

Still a Unique RPG Masterpiece

Looking at Shadow of War holistically years later with the benefits of patches and hindsight, its shining core absolutely stands the test of time. The dynamic stories fueled by the innovative Nemesis system paired with deep gear and skill customization simply has no parallel. Exploring Tolkien‘s iconic world while commanding my own loyal orc army against threatening enemies kept me wholly engaged even after dozens of hours.

While technical roughness around textures and frame pacing show its age, Shadow of War remains a uniquely personal RPG bolstered by organic emergent gameplay systems unmatched even today. As Monolith continues supporting this phenomenal dynamic world concept in the upcoming Wonder Woman title, Shadow of War deserves revisiting as a seminal open world game still highly worth playing even 6 years later in 2024.