Which includes Loot Chests containing Gear for Talion of varying rarity and colour, plus XP boosts to make the process of levelling quicker. And War Chests that will provide access to Orcs without having to dominate them. Either of which can be unlocked or purchased with in-game gold earned, or with real world money. Hmm.

Okay, so its hard not to feel a little torn about this. Especially in relation to paying for Orcs as opposed to, you know, playing the game. Now, developer Monolith has been quick to point out that no content will be behind a paywall for Middle-earth: Shadow of War, everything that can be obtained with money can also be obtained via the act of playing the game.

All of the above was announced via the following livestream from the developers.



But really, Loot Chests are just a fancy way to dress up micro-transactions. A point of contention for many people when it comes to single-player games. We'll be sticking with the core game, when Middle-earth: Shadow of War launches October 10 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

I'll just buy it when it's $4 on steam like I did with the first one...

At least if the progression is warped because of the pay-to-win chests, I won't feel like I've wasted money.

Can we just jack up the price of games $10 by standard and avoid all this microtransaction bulls***. Seriously. This is happening more and more increasingly, and when you look at the prices of games they haven't exactly increased with inflation.

I'm so disappointed by this, I was really looking forward to Shadow of War and this has completely killed all my hype for it. What a douchebag thing to pull, they had built up so much goodwill with gamers after the first one and now they've just gone and blown it all in one s***ty move. Who the hell thought this was a good idea!