With so many fantastic Lord of the Rings-based games, choosing just one Middle Earth title to conquer them all is hard. We had role-playing games, real-time strategies, movie-influenced titles, and many others for everyone to enjoy.

But, two games are exceeding expectations in that department. The duology from Warner Bros made an impact on the action games industry throughout the years, especially with the Nemesis system. The Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War are one of the most interesting titles in the whole wide lore!

In this article, we will review which is a good game and which is significantly better. Tolkien’s world is full of fantastic creatures just waiting to be found, and Peter Jackson is undoubtedly not the only person with some creativity.

It may not be the original story from the books, but Tolkien’s Middle Earth is big enough to fit all the adventurers. So, without further ado - let’s get into some nitty-gritty details.

While both are set in the unwelcoming Middle Earth, they portray a different side. Shadow of Mordor is the first game in this series. The main protagonist is a fellow named Talion from Gondor – a captain that fights against Sauron. The interesting part is the eleven spirit Celebrimbor that creates an exciting combination of characters and abilities.

On the other hand, we have Monolith Productions, Middle Earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the original story based on Tolkien’s work. And, as most sequels do, it’s pretty much more of the same. Sauron is coming back, so you must fight him to save the world and humanity. It’s a perfect sequel that builds on the work of the previous game. Although, there are some issues with that, like the infamous blue Sauron eye or the Nazgul’s backstory changes.

Is it enough to be considered better? Well, we are divided. On the one hand, you can get more out of this game for sure, like playing as Celebrimbor, but on the other, there aren’t many additions to the story and there are a few setbacks as well. We will have to give that one to the Shadow of Mordor as the more original of the two.

Next up – gameplay. Let’s start with Batman: Arkham…sorry, Shadow of Mordor. But to be honest, is it much more than that? And also – why repair something that is not broken? You have your two button-system, where one is attack, and the second is counter. And it’s pretty much it. Additionally, you can stealth on people, which is not recommended, as fighting is so much fun in this game!

On the other hand, we have Shadow of War, which has a second-game advantage in the combat system. For starters, everything that was introduced in the first game got improved. Fighting is a lot more agile. The battle feels more ecstatic and overall – more fun. Additionally, the ability to recruit orcs is pretty exciting, and we would surely want to see more of that in the franchise. And we haven’t even spoken about upgrading a clunky Nemesis system from the previous game to absolute gold.

Point for Shadow of War!

Now to the important part – are there any good side quests in those games? Well, there are some. Shadow of Mordor, for starters, has many additional side quests where you can unlock weapons and fight with some new enemies.

Shadow of War also has many of those, as you can additionally play as Celebrimbor in his past glory. But – to be honest – most of those side-quests are go there, do that, and there isn’t anything particularly interesting about those.

As both side-quests in those games are meh, we would rather focus on the main campaign and call it a draw.

The next battle is in the open world – literally! Both games have a significant and wonderful world of excellent/dreadful possibilities. In Shadow of Mordor, this world is, well, Mordor. You pretty much go through many of the exact locations – dark, darker, and the darkest parts of this god-forsaken world.

On the other hand, we have Shadow of War, where we travel to many locations you may know from the Lord of the Rings lore, such as Minas Ithil. Locations in this one are more significant, complex, and overall – much more advanced. Point for Shadow of War.

Speaking of lore – let’s discuss it! Both games are set in a pretty understandably controversial world of Lord of the Rings, and by controversial, we mean – there will be many people who are not happy with the choices. Lord of the Rings must have some of the most strict fans ever, so getting everything right is extremely important.

Shadow of Mordor did it quite cleverly, as they chose different parts of Sauron as the antagonists. You have the Hammer of Sauron, Black Hand of Sauron, and others that do not exist in the lore, but those characters tie the plot back to the evil-doer himself. Of course, with the whole of Sauron’s army fighting there, too.

In Shadow of War, we mostly fight with Nazguls as the main antagonists. And there are a lot of problems with it. For example, the identities of the Nazgul are not in line with the lore, which upset a lot of fans right from the start. Additionally, there is this famous blue-light effect on the Eye of Sauron that never happened, and it changes the whole idea.

So, in that regard, we just can’t give this point to the blue-eyed Sauron white knight, as it is unacceptable.

And lastly, we have the Nemesis system. A concept that made those games, and was later introduced in multiple other titles. What is it exactly? Well, it’s mostly an advanced boss version of common enemies. The Nemesis System is a unique way of creating different captains with different strengths, personalities, and ways to impact the world at hand as a whole.

Killing those guys' physical form will influence the game and how the orcs operate. It is best visible in the Shadow of War, where you can later recruit some of the orcs, and killing their leader is one of the ways to accomplish that.

The best thing about this system is that those orc captains differ significantly from the common population. They have different strengths and weaknesses. Killing them will also provide a higher level of gear in the game.

And while we love and cherish the introduction of this system from Shadow of Mordor, what they did with it in the Shadow of War is incredible. There is a reason why so many games these days use this system to make the gameplay more exciting and, while doing so – get even more people buying the game. The choice can be no other – Shadow of War wins this round.

And here we are, at the end of choosing the best Lord of the Rings game. Drum rolls and the winner is – Shadow of War! Well, it was somewhat not surprising. The sequel to the fantastic Shadow of Mordor is just an overwhelmingly better game than its predecessor. It is also a newer game, so it may have been destined to be that way.

Shadow of War offers a much more complex gaming experience with many elements that were perfected from Shadow of Mordor or just not comparable to the older game of the two. And thus – Shadow of War is the winner in this clash, but we encourage you to check out both of the titles as they are still both pretty good games, and you can follow the story from the start. Of course, you can find both games at RoyalCDKeys for a great price!

As usual – thank you so much for stopping by. We hope you had a blast reading this article, we love both of these games, so it was a hard fight indeed to tell them apart. If you are interested in those kinds of clashes, we have a lot of similar articles on various gaming-related topics for you to check out. We hope you will find something you like!