Oh, The Places You'll Go In 'Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War'

The latest video for Middle-earth: Shadow of War takes a break from focusing on the upcoming game’s combat and characters. Instead, the subjects of the video are the locations you’ll encounter throughout your journey to build an Orc army to face Sauron.

Similar to the first game, you’ll still see areas that are lush with trees and grass or a rocky area devoid of plant life, but there are also places packed in with heavy snow and even deep forests filled with potentially hostile creatures. The expansion of multiple Orc factions combined with constant battles against humans turned these locations into battlegrounds. As such, there are multiple fortresses throughout the land that house thousands of Orcs.

These enemy bases won't stay up forever. As Talion, you'll recruit an army of your own Orcs to take on Sauron’s forces. With each fortress captured and enemy commander slain more troops will join your ranks, freeing a small portion of land from the clutches of evil.

The introduction of these new areas reinforces what Monolith art director Matthew Allen said during the game's first showing at GDC, where he said that the studio included more diverse areas in the followup to Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. He also said these areas would be larger in scale compared to the two (already massive) areas in the first game.

In previous footage from the new title, we’ve only seen glimpses of these other areas, but we’re bound to see how you can travel from one location to another in the near future. If you want to get an in-depth look at the game, check out our interview with Allen, which featured a 16-minute gameplay demo.