Seeing the amount of interest towards Arnor faction in our recent polls, we've decided to shine some light on it's gameplay plans.
For some reasons (that will explained in future articles), Eriador region as a whole, will not be available on initial campaign release. Initial = first public Rise of Mordor campaign release, featuring Middle-Earth map (which is not coming soon, sorry).
This means that Arnor faction will not be available for you guys to play when our first ever campaign releases
You could've seen our campaign start positions map (if not, it's here) and all the factions planned at this stage of development.
You could notice that there are five extra factions in Eriador and most likely you couldn't guess even a half of them! Well, the reason for that is the gameplay that we've prepared for you, as an Eriador player. The five non-elf and non-dwarf factions that you see in Eriador are essentially AI (non-playable) factions. All of them but Shire, are men factions and all of them are neutral between themselves and the rest of Middle-Earth factions (with some exceptions).
You could also notice some green spots in Eriador - that is Dunedain Rangers horde faction. The gameplay for it will be the following: You will have to get those Eriador men-factions under your control, be it with force or peace. Once all objectives are complete and you control the territorries needed, you will be able to reforge the Kingdom of Arnor (sorry for a simplified and brief description, but this post already has way too much info to take).
However it won't be as easy as it sounds as we're considering adding very similar gameplay but for an evil faction. It is not the widely known Remnants of Angmar (which will not exist in Rise of Mordor) but a brand new evil faction (we made it up) that also starts as a horde faction in Eriador and it's objectives are to conquer same lands as Dunedain Rangers and to oppose them.
Esentially this means that you have two (evil and good) horde factions that are racing against each other for inffluence and dominance over the free men of Eriador and building their own kingdom of off them.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
3 comments
Just one question, is it planned to be able to unite Arnor and Gondor as one single faction, as a gameplay mechanic, once Arnor is reforged?
Keep it up!!
Knowing you've made a faction up is so immersion breaking.