I’ve spent much of my week playing Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, and it’s a damned fine game. I’m having a blast running around Mordor, enslaving Orcs to join my army against the forces of the Dark Lord. Our own Darryn liked it quite a bit too, giving it 9/10 in his tome of a review.
“Middle-Earth: Shadow of War is Lord of the Rings turned up to 11. Improving on nearly every idea from the original Shadow of Mordor game, it’s a gargantuan sequel in both size and scope.”
I agree with him, but you’ll find many people who don’t – largely because of the game’s system of loot boxes, which have no place being in a single player game. While that’s a sentiment I share, I will say that I find them unobtrusive enough to wholly ignore. Still, their mere presence has many standing against an otherwise excellent game. That sort of protest is probably one of the reasons why the PC version has been cracked already.
Shadow of War uses the now-standard Denuvo Anti Tampering on PC. Increasingly, Denuvo’s taken less and less time for nefarious underworlders to bypass, but Shadow of War’s protection has been cracked in just 24 hours.
For reference, it took a week and a half for crackers to open up Mass Effect: Andromeda, and a week to get inside Resident Evil 7. For a while, it seemed like anti-piracy technology was finally on the verge of stomping out the practice – with notable cracking group 3DM saying that by 2018, piracy could be eradicated.
I guess not – not that piracy actually has a negative effect on sales anyway, according to one study at least. In fact, it may actually increase game sales.
Last Updated: October 13, 2017
Admiral Chief
October 13, 2017 at 09:16
Some guys likely just do this to see if they can break it, then move on
Admiral Chief
October 13, 2017 at 09:16
[Achievement Unlocked] type of thing, I guess
For the Emperor!
October 13, 2017 at 10:04
If companies would keep their filthy loot boxes and micro transaction rip-offs out of my single player games, life would be so much better and I might buy games closer to release and not wait to get it at 80% discount! For example, I was on the verge of pre-ordering NBA2K18, WWE2K18 and this game (this was before I quit my job), but NOOOooooo we have to ruin everything with crap-transactions!
Admiral Chief
October 13, 2017 at 10:11
Why you quit?
For the Emperor!
October 13, 2017 at 10:13
Like a typical gamer 😛
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pvBxEdJ4_gY/maxresdefault.jpg
Admiral Chief
October 13, 2017 at 10:17
Not HOW, WHY
And are you in need of an employer at the moment?
For the Emperor!
October 13, 2017 at 10:48
I was VERY unhappy for a couple of years already, especially with people treating senior developers with 14+ years experience like their own personal children and slaves, pulling rank to make bad decisions and then we have to fix the fallout. And people sitting on info until 10 minutes before I go home and then dropping the “urgent” requests in my lap, leaving me to work late while they go home to their families. Luckily I am financially covered for a few months so I can take my time to search for that nice coastal job so I can be a beach bum!
Skittle
October 13, 2017 at 10:21
According to PC Gamer some people have found an exploit to get unlimited silver loot boxes. Good.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
October 13, 2017 at 11:36
https://media.giphy.com/media/ikHhcHUefH6iQ/giphy.gif