Talion is a captain of Gondor at the Black Gate of Mordor. His garrison is attacked by Sauron's Uruk forces led by three Black Númenórean captains; the Hammer of Sauron, the Tower of Sauron , and their leader, the Black Hand of Sauron. Talion, his wife Ioreth, and his son, Dirhael, are captured and ritually sacrificed by the Black Hand in an attempt to summon the wraith of the Elf Lord Celebrimbor. However, Celebrimbor (who suffers from amnesia due to his status as a wraith) instead merges with Talion, preventing him from dying alongside his family. Talion and Celebrimbor then depart to uncover Celebrimbor's identity and avenge the death of Talion's family.
Players can travel across locations in the game through parkour, riding monsters, or accessing Forge Towers, which serve as fast travel points. Though Talion is mortally felled in the game's introduction, the wraith of the Elven Lord Celebrimbor is able to use his power to keep Talion alive, along with gifting him wraith-like abilities. Missions in the game feature main story missions that follow Talion's quest for revenge, side missions that involve following Gollum to find artifacts that are tied to Celebrimbor's past, missions to free the human slaves that have been captured by the Uruk armies and forced to work for Sauron, and additional quests to help forge new abilities for Talion's sword, bow, and dagger. The player also has the freedom to pursue side quests and roam around Mordor, with special activities to collect specific flora or to hunt certain creatures, or to find old artifacts or Elvish seals.
A core feature of Shadow of Mordor is the Nemesis system. The game can track any Uruk (a nastier orc, the general antagonists of the game) that the player comes into contact with. While there are "generic" Uruk for the player to fight en masse, and will be as cannon fodder as part of Sauron's armies, the game will begin tracking Uruk that perform any notable talents within the game, such as killing the player or surviving an encounter with the player. These Uruk will be promoted to captains. Defeating these leaders will help to weaken Sauron's army, and these leaders will drop a rune which the player can install on Talion's weapons to provide additional buffs in battle. Alternatively, being killed by a leader will cause the current mission to be cancelled and the player to return to a safe point to continue exploring, and the leader will gain additional power, making him more difficult to defeat in the next encounter.
Source: Wikipedia, "Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor", available under the CC-BY-SA License.
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