2026 has been a hell of a year for remakes and re-releases. It was bound to be in a way, given that the power of the Switch 2 is such that it’s allowing Nintendo to finally port many games that its predecessor couldn’t possibly have managed. From classics like DmC5 to modern hotties like Resident Evil 9, Elden Ring, and Lies of P, it’s been a great year for Nintendo fans to play catch-up. One that seemed to come right out of left field though, is this: Monolith’s Middle-Earth Shadow Bundle, which contains the awesome Lord of the Rings-adjacent Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, two of the best games to land in the PS5 / Xbox One era.
First off, how do they run? Well, as expected they run pretty well here. Mordor is older and much rougher around the edges, but it’s smooth enough in motion. Neither looks great when docked, but in handheld mode Shadow of Mordor looks pretty decent. Shadow of War, on the other hand, looks superb in handheld mode, almost as good to my eyes as it ever did when played on PS4.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War is undoubtedly the better game in almost every way, but Mordor laid a lot of the groundwork. The story in the first game is arguably better, but since it ends on a cliffhanger and then continues directly from the start of the sequel, it’s absolutely worth playing both. Plus, the main character, Talion, may be a fairly generic Aragorn stand-in (he’s even a ranger as well), but the opening of the first game is emotionally powerful and his growing relationship with the wraith Celebrimbor is worth following from minute one.
The overall gameplay is pretty similar for both games. It’s a mix of stealth and Arkham-style reactionary melee combat, with some ghostly archery thrown in. Where the first game has a more linear journey from A to B, Shadow of War feels more about conquering territory and removing Sauron’s influence. You’re working with more heroic NPCs who are themselves leading a struggling resistance against the Dark Lord.
In either case, the star of both games is undoubtedly the Nemesis system. This incredible system, imprisoned in copyright jail by Warner Bros until recently, is simply fantastic. Essentially it means that every time Talion is killed and resurrected by Celebrimbor’s magic, the orc that killed him is promoted, taking on new strengths and weaknesses. Orcs that flew will remember Talion and develop new personality traits, while surviving orc captains will swear revenge and grow to hate him. In the second game this system is fleshed out even more when Talion is able to bring Orcs under his influence and pit them against one another.
Between the exceptional combat, Assassin’s Creed-style traversal, and the amazing Nemesis System, both games as a whole create a sublime, 60 to 80 hour adventure that only gets better as you move on from Mordor into War. I will caution you on the price though. This is a pair of games you can grab on PC for under a fiver in every Steam sale. The bundle on Switch 2 is a whopping £62 at time of writing. Even with the DLC added as both games in the bundle are the GOTY versions, that’s a monumental asking price for a pair of games this old that haven’t really been remastered much here.
If you can stomach the price and this is the only way you can get hold of these classics, then this is a must have, but if that price is just too steep or you can play these games on literally any other system (both are currently free on Game Pass), then I’d suggest giving the Switch 2 version of the Middle-earth: Shadow Bundle a miss altogether.