Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor Has Lots of Dark Humor

Here’s some new information on Monolith‘s new action/adventure set in Tolkien‘s beloved universe: Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor. The game, as we previously reported, sees players infiltrating in Mordor with Talion, a Ranger of Gondor who has lost everything and seeks out revenge on Sauron and his minions.

Anyone who knows even a little bit of The Lords of the Rings’ world will be aware that Mordor isn’t exactly the happiest place in Middle Earth, being the seat of power of the terrible Sauron. Usually games have a mix of darkest and lightest places to ease players’ mind, but this won’t be the case with Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor. Monolith’s Michael De Plater knows the recipe to offset this potential issue, though: lots of dark humor, as he told Gamespot.

The short answer, just to jump to it, is humor. A really good way to offset the darkness is there is a lot of dark humor in the game. Our story characters have a lot of humor to them. And actually one of the lead writers… this is the main thing I think you’ll notice in the future when you look at the game, and the showdowns, and the presentations, and the [voice-over] of all these guys… we had a writer called Dan Abnett from the UK. He’s written a bunch of really good Warhammer books, Warhammer 40K and Marvel comics, and the thing he brings… what happens is, this is a dark and gritty universe as well, and his books are so far above most of them, because he just brings a real humanity and personality, and humor to it as well

Humor is most certainly a good way to fight depressing environments and situations, generally speaking. That said, writers will have to be really careful to plug this in the context of The Lord of the Rings’ backstory and legacy - one which has particularly zealous followers, and understandably so, since the IP can be considered the basis for all kinds of modern fantasy. Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor will be released in 2014 for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.