Middle-earth: Shadow of War elaborates upon the open-world activities offered in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. One of the franchise's defining features, the Nemesis System, creates substantial relationships between players and enemies with adaptive interactions. Orcs, Uruks, and Ologs, may hold grudges and even backstab or betray players, but they remember their previous encounters nonetheless.
Further, players are initially outnumbered in each Middle-earth installment before recruiting an army of Mordor's finest themselves. Recruiting involves a strategic plan of attack for how to dwindle Mordor's forces and, at the same time, coerce foes into joining them in their plight to defeat Sauron. Enemies do not follow players willingly, but there is one crucial ability in Middle-earth: Shadow of War that gives players the tact to assimilate and command them.
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How to Recruit Enemies in Middle-earth: Shadow of War
However, protagonists Talion and Celebrimbor are incapable of recruiting and amassing their armies in Middle-earth: Shadow of War until Act 2, when they receive the Dominate ability. In both installments, players are given the ability to Dominate foes and recruit them into their own army, which essentially overwrites the previous troupe of Orcs and Uruks in a region.
Dominate falls under the Drain skill ability, which allows players to recover health back from targeted foes. Because Dominate is related to Drain, whenever players Drain an enemy, they will also become Dominated and fight alongside the player as a loyal NPC ally.
While producing an immediate following of regular enemies may be entertaining and aid players on the battlefield, it is inconsequential to legitimate recruitment. Players may Dominate regular enemies as they see fit throughout Middle-earth: Shadow of War's open-world regions, but only named, ranked Captains are involved in recruitment strategies.
But once Dominate is unlocked, players still face one more obstacle before they can officially recruit an enemy. Captains must still be battled and whittled down until their health is low enough to suffer the Broken status, signified by their orange rank banner turning green. Once Broken, players may Dominate them at any time, though they will likely be interrupted by other enemies unless they have the Captain isolated.
Celebrimbor's ethereal grasp seizes the enemy as the player is given a series of choices that determine the Captain's fate, including Shame, Fight to the Death, and Recruit. Recruiting the Captain is then as simple as selecting it from the input choices, and they will be instantly added to their follower ranks and viewable in the Nemesis System. However, if players attempt to recruit a higher-level captain, the option to Recruit will be greyed out and inaccessible. If this is the case, Middle-earth players instead have the option to Shame them, which decreases their power ranking level.
The player is then tasked to locate the Captain again but will have the opportunity to successfully Dominate them this time if they have been Shamed to a low enough level. In particular, Domination is reserved for the more significant and powerful foes that players can see stats and appearances for in Middle-earth: Shadow of War's Nemesis System.
The Nemesis System then displays each region's Captains, Warchiefs, and Overlord, which transitions dynamically through the player's explicit and implicit actions. The Nemesis System also depicts the opponents that players have Dominated, with tethered connections to other enemies shown if applicable.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War's recruitment features within the Nemesis System are improved upon from Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, with options and upgrades relative to larger Siege quests that have players either defend their Fortress or assault another. From this point onward, players may upgrade and enhance their Dominated Orcs, Uruks, and Ologs to better prepare them for Siege quests and other elaborate activities in Middle-earth: Shadow of War.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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