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Middle-earth: Shadow of War — the first half hour has some big story twists

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

The first half hour of Middle-earth: Shadow of War moves fast. We’ve recorded it on video to give you an idea of some very big plot twists that happen at the beginning of the game.

The binding of Talion the Ranger and the Elven smith Celebrimbor is the subject of the first game, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which launched to great acclaim in 2014. They are set on preventing the evil lord Sauron from taking over the land of Mordor, and in this game they are willing to wage a civil war among the Orcs to stop the Dark Lord. They do so by forging a new Ring of Power and setting Talion up as the Bright Lord.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.