We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

Shadow of War’s multiplayer is like Metal Gear Solid 5’s online base mode, but with more orcs

Shadow of War

Update, August 7: Monolith are expanding Shadow of Mordor’s light online elements, and adding a whole new game mode, which might go some way to explaining why they’re hiring someone to help with their online gameplay.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is expanding on its predecessor’s online play, bringing back the original’s Vendetta missions and adding a new mode, ‘Social Conquest’, to the upcoming game.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War makes it onto our list of the best upcoming PC games.

In Shadow of Mordor, online gameplay was reasonably minimal, allowing you to summon your friends’ enemies to you, in an attempt to avenge your fallen comrades in Vendetta missions. These missions have been revamped in Shadow of War, so instead of bringing the orcs to you, the game transports your version of Talion to your ally’s version of Mordor to contend with their Nemesis system. You only get one chance to kill your new foe, but if you succeed, you and your friend will both receive rewards, as reported by Eurogamer.

Shadow of War’s other online game mode is Social Conquest, which is a new addition to the series. The game will allow you to use your orc army to capture and then maintain an online fortress for other players to attempt to capture using their own armies. There’ll be three capture points in each fortress which you’ll need to control in order to bring out the fortress’ commander. Slay him, and you’ll receive rewards based on how quickly you captured the enemy base.

There’ll be two modes to Social Conquest. ‘Friendly’ attempts will allow you to take on other bases at no risk to your army, while ‘ranked’ modes will put your soldiers at risk. If one of your captains dies in the assault, you won’t be able to take them back into your version of Mordor at the end of the attack. Conquering bases improves your assault rating, which allows you to attack progressively harder fortresses, but if you lose a battle you’ll also lose some of your rating.

Original Story, August 7:Monolith Studios, the team behind Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and the upcoming Shadow of War, seem to be taking a new direction for their next game according to a job opening posted on theTimeWarner careers page.

The job advertised is for a senior producer who will be “responsible for overseeing our Social and Connected Game Experience.” The listing goes on to say that the new hire will be a “key team member” who will “help create and champion the vision of the Connected Experience.” The advert also asks for someone who has “shipped at least 1 title with an online focus.” Clearly, Monolith are looking for someone to help integrate some sort of multiplayer or online aspect into one of their games.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor contained some light online elements in a mode called Vendetta, which saw you take on orcs that had previous slain other players in battle.

This casts some doubt of the future of Monolith’s Middle-earth franchise, as this hire seems to move away from the direction they’ve taken so far. On the other hand, information posted on the forums by Monolith says that you’ll need an online connection to access Shadow of War’s new lootboxes, so it could be that the new producer might be brought in to help with the development of that feature, either on the upcoming game or a whole new project.

This article previously stated that Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor contained no online play. This has now been corrected to contain information about the online ‘Vendetta’ missions.