Middle Earth: Shadow of War won’t disappoint fans of the game’s predecessor, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Our own Pat Gill went hands-on with some Shadow of War gameplay at a recent Xbox event. The fortress assault that he played was a messy, glorious battle. Basically, developer Monolith Productions turned everything up to eleven.
Take a peek at the gameplay video above to see an example of mounted combat, as well as the game’s biggest innovation: dominating your enemies.
This particular battle features an overwhelming number of types of orcs. The player has to think fast to use the proper attack on the proper target, and there are dozens of enemies onscreen at a time.
This battle may have been a little more chaotic than average, according to the developers. Each fortress is staffed by orcs that you could potentially encounter and kill in the open-world — they won’t necessarily all be home when you come knocking.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War will come out on Oct. 10 for Windows PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.