The anticipated sequel for Middle-earth: Shadow of War is nearly upon us, but even though many are looking forward to seeing Talion and Celebrimbor's journey continue, the game has been shrouded in controversy, mostly due to the aggressive implementation of loot boxes in the game. These contain both gear as well as orcs, which some suggest undermines the entire experience.
That, however, is not the case according to developer Monolith, because they think it offers choice to the player. In an interview with Eurogamer, design director Bob Roberts explains:
"In the game you earn resources at a regular pace and the systems are tuned to that so you don't need another option. At the same time, it's there as a player choice. It's there, from my perspective, for people who are protective of their spare time and scared when a massive game comes along that they're not getting to see the full experience," Roberts said.
In fact, Roberts compares adding loot boxes in to effectively save time for the player the same basic philosophy as adding different difficulty levels.
"It's the same design philosophy as us adding in difficulty modes," he said, pointing out that the Nemesis System, for example, doesn't exactly shine on Easy. "So we now have Easy mode, and we've added Hard mode at the other end of the spectrum. Frankly the Nemesis system comes to life when you are dying loads, so you could see Easy mode as a system which makes the game less enjoyable if you are the type of player who really should have put it on Hard. It's putting more control in people's hands - saying, you know how you play best, you make that choice.
"The ideal for people who set it to Easy is if they are just finding things too punishing, not because they don't want to die. We'd rather you die regularly to get the full experience of the Nemesis system."
Do you agree?