Monolith, developers of Middle-earth: Shadow of War, showed the new region Lithlad and some new gameplay from the upcoming Story DLC. This is the Desolation of Mordor first look live stream overview
This article does NOT contain any major spoilers about the new Story Expansion.
If you have missed last week’s announcement, check the video below to get up to speed before you continue with the new reveals from this week in this article.
Monolith revealed parts of the new region – the desert of Lithlad, and some new gameplay, character designs and mechanics that will be a part of the upcoming final Story DLC to Middle-earth: Shadow of War – Desolation of Mordor. It’s scheduled to be released on 8th of May.
The story continues after the events with Baranor and Idril in the core game. Baranor has brought a group of Gondorian Soldiers to open up a new front in the war against Mordor. It is, similarly to the previous story expansion Blade of Galadriel, set during the Shadow Wars campaign. There is no exact timing specified and it is for a reason, the devs said.
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There are light references to Talion in the story, but nothing more specific was revealed at this point in time before the release of the Story Expansion.
Monolith showed the Oasis, which is something like a Sanctuary. The new region is a vast desert and very unfriendly to everybody – both orcs and humans alike. In the Oasis you will be able to interact with a number of NPCs, including the new potential followers – mercenaries. The Oasis is where the Banishing Sun Mercenary Company takes hold in Lithlad. Many of the non-player characters in the Oasis are interact-able. Theambient dialogues are quite lively and funny too. Random sandstorms are nothing new and strange for this region too.
There are numenorean ruins all over the desert of Lithlad. In fact, the region is filled with numenorean lore and as part of the new story, Baranor will be gearing himself up with a brand new Numenorean armor and weapons set. The numenoreans left a significant trail in this part of the world before they vanished from it a long time ago. In the words of the hosts of the live event – “they also left some artifacts and bits of their technology” in the desert, which Baranor can find with the help of “old friends”. We already know that Torvin from Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor will make an appearance here.
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One of the new creatures you will encounter in the new area are the mythological were-worms from Tolkien’s lore. The were-worm is very large worm-type of a creatures. It makes its home in Lithlad and lives mostly under ground. If it senses something nearby.
During the live stream the HUD was turned off as there are, apparently, new items and indicators that the developers were not ready to show us yet. Also… for cinematic experience, said Jarret, the host.
As we’ve learned last week, Baranor is a normal human, mortal without super powers. When he dies, he is dead. There is a new very different system of progress saving in Desolation of Mordor.
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It has been confirmed that Baranor will not be able to ride Caragors, Graugs and… any of the beasts in Mordor. Remember that he doesn’t own a Ring of Power, so he will be unable to dominate and tame them. In fact, that is one of the reasons why he relies on Mercenaries – he cannot recruit Orcs like Talion and Eltariel do.
Climbing is possible, though. Baranor will be able to climb up and down the environment. He’s also got a special “tool” on his left hand. It’s kind of like a fold-able shield, but not much was revealed yet. It’s probably why they didn’t want to show us the UI yet – this might be a new main mechanic for the gameplay with Baranor.
Next week live stream will focus more on Combat and elements related to it. SO far we only know that Baranor will have a set of his own unique abilities, but will also share some with Talion. It will probably be a similar mix of a lot of core game abilities, a few semi-new ones that look different, but play the same role and a small number of brand new unique skills only available to Baranor.
You can check out the video archive of the live stream this article is referencing below. All images are taken from this event.
