Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor DLC Trailer Reveals Battle With Sauron

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor releases today and already we're getting word on what some of the game's future DLC will entail. For starters, how about a battle with the Witch King himself, Sauron?

As you may have learned by now, Shadow of Mordor takes place quite a while before The Lord of the Rings trilogy and even a long time before The Hobbit. You take on the role of a ranger who has been granted a second lease on life in order to do great work. Said “great work,” of course, involves the killing of loads of orcs, taking out the forces of evil before they can get too strong a foothold in Middle-earth.

The gameplay has been frequently compared to something akin to the Assassin's Creed series, involving exploration of a big open world, free roaming and climbing, and combat that allows you to dart between enemies like a spinning tornado of death.

In case you're worried about DLC being the topic of discussion on the day of a game's launch, you shouldn't be. Loads of reviews for Shadow have already popped up online, pretty much unanimously praising this game for how awesome it is. Of special note is the game's orc hierarchy, which you can use to track the military chain amongst your enemies and hold influence over it by killing off certain foes or placing orcs you control in power. Did I mention you can Jedi mind trick orcs and have them do your bidding? Because you totally can.

Whenever you finish the game proper, it looks like there are already plans for additional story content coming down the pipeline. According to a recent post over on Kotaku, one of those missions will even give you the chance to go toe-to-toe with Sauron himself. For those of you not too deep into LotR lore, that's the big bad of the series. He's the dude that lives in the tower with the flaming eye on top. Just pass the Shire, follow the 101 all the way up and exit before you hit Mount Doom. Can't miss it.

In watching the game's DLC season pass trailer, writer Yannick Lejacq caught sight of a very special encounter, one that appears to put the player in the role of an elf waging war against Sauron himself. As LeJacq goes on to point out, you'd think something like that would be shouted from the rooftops in order to get folks even more excited for the game, but nope, it's just kind of there for a quick glimpse if you happen to catch it.

As I said, you can get to purchasing or downloading Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One starting today. The DLC season pass will set you back 25 bucks and includes everything from new missions and challenges, to new game modes, skins, etc.