Bring up any other sandbox game made in the years since Shadow of Mordor was released, and conversation generally shifts towards “man wouldn’t it be cool if it had its own Nemesis System?”. In an industry where inspiration is obvious, doing just that is about to get a whole lot more challenging as Warner Bros. has patented the idea.

Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts might be interested in purchasing Warner Bros. Interactive if its parent company makes the sale official, but they'd be facing some stiff green competition from Microsoft along the way.

If you’ve been actively avoiding Shadow of War as a statement to those darn microtransactions, then here’s some good news for you: All of those pesky payment pokes are gone, plus the game is rolling out the obligatory complete edition of all of its content.

Almost 300 days later, Shadow of War is now a drastically different gold after its latest patch, which saw the game’s secondary premium currency and hand-rubbing Orc pulled from the base game.

Fans weren’t happy with the egregious storefront that allowed players to purchase better Orcs for their army in Shadow of War, putting many a potential player off of an otherwise fantastic game and its interesting extra downloadable content. Good news then, as Monolith and Warner Bros. Interactive have finally heard the call and made the announcement official: Shadow of War is dropping its microtransactions.

While Shadow of War may have concluded Talion’s story, the game ain’t over yet. Designed to keep players around for the long run with fortress siege events that focuses on you strengthening your own army of Orcs (with effort or loot boxes), Shadow of War has a few new modes arriving in the next couple of weeks.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War is a game of treachery, domination and shaming. Lots and lots of it in fact, as a few weeks after launch and the numbers that have come in for the game have been nothing short of staggering.

Gaining power in a video game is easy. But maintaining it? Now that’s the real challenge. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor may have ended with Talion having the power to enslave an army of Orcs and then detonate their heads like a squishy fourth of July. Shadow of War pulls the ol’ switcheroo on Talion’s ability to raise hell, sending him back to square one as he rebuilds not only his army but also his personal taste for Orcish devastation.