TGO Daily | November 3, 2020 | Middle-Earth Loses Online
Woops! I wrote the entire newsletter yesterday, and totally forgot to hit the “Send” button. My bad, sorry about that. For what it’s worth, it wasn’t a huge day for news anyway, so you didn’t miss much. If you want to read it, feel free to check it out on the Substack website here.
I’m neck deep in school work and trying to keep life sustainable — so far so good! Apologies for any issues in the newsletter over the next few weeks though.
To my United States readers, sending lots of love today <3
Adrian
In The News
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Beginning at the end of this year (December 31, 2020), Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor will no longer have any online features. This will mean a number of key features will be phased out:
The Nemesis Forge, which allows you to transfer Nemesis and Followers to the sequel Shadow of War
Vendetta Missions, which are missions that get you to get vengeance on enemies who kill your friends
Leaderboards
Some in-game content that require online components, such as the Orc Hunter and Gravewalker runes, will be given to all players for free. Otherwise, the single-player campaign will remain.
Source: rockpapershotgun.com
The Dark Pictures Anthology
On Friday, Little Hope launched as the second of eight games in the Dark Pictures Anthology. Much like its predecessor (Man of Medan), the game’s reviews were fairly mixed. One of the main appeals continues to be its co-op campaign, which isn’t too common when it comes to horror games.
Now that the game is out, Supermassive Games have announced the next title, House of Ashes. It appears to feature Ashley Tisdale as the main character, with the trailer showing military members in a desert cave. You probably already know if you’re interested in it, but feel free to check out the teaser above.
Apex Legends
Respawn’s battle royale is going to be entering it’s seventh season on Wednesday, and it looks like this will be one of their biggest. I’ve seen a lot of people talking about it.
The biggest thing is the new map, Olympus, which is positively colourful. Apex is known for its very orange and red colour palette, so now having the splash of green and blue is nicer on the eyes. Apparently it was originally a Titanfall 3 concept which they reused.
They’re also bringing in (for the first time) new vehicles, a new character named Horizon, and a “clubs” feature which has a maximum of 30 members.
If you’ve been thinking of trying out Apex, or wanted to return to it, this seems like a good opportunity. I’ve had a lot of fun with the game in the past myself — I think its one of the better battle royales on the market.
Animal Farm
George Orwell’s classic novel Animal Farm is getting a video game, and it now has a release date of December 10th. It’s being developed by Nerial, who are most well known for the Reigns series of games, made popular on mobile devices.
If you’ve never heard about Animal Farm, you’re in for a treat. I’d encourage you to read the novella — it’s an allegorical story about farm animals who decide to rebel against their human farmer. It draws on the revolutions of France and Russia, and was published only one year after WWII.
It’s a great story, and should translate well to a narrative adventure. The way they describe it sounds a lot like Reigns:
“Players must devise strategies to balance resources, defend the farm, and keep the animal population happy…Assign their tasks, upgrade their buildings, choose their laws, and direct their propaganda. Determine which of the animals will make sacrifices and which will be 'more equal than others’”
Say Hello!
That’s all for today :) If you want to get in touch, you can always reply to this email. You can also DM me on Twitter, or come join the community on Discord (it’s awesome)!
This newsletter is a companion/alternative to a mini-podcast I produce. The show is archived on YouTube, with most people listening on Amazon Alexa devices — but it’s also available on all podcast hosts.