The improved hardware of the Nintendo Switch 2 has allowed many developers and publishers to re-release slightly older games that the original Switch simply wasn’t capable of running properly. I’ve really enjoyed this period, as it gives me an excuse to check out games I had previously overlooked for one reason or another. That said, I usually expect these ports to either feature enough improvements to justify their belated arrival, or be games the original hardware genuinely had no chance of running.

The brand new Switch 2 version of Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor doesn’t really fall into either category, which is a damn shame. At the same time, that only highlights the strength of the game itself. Even a somewhat half-baked and under-optimized port of a truly fantastic game can still provide countless hours of fun, provided you can tolerate some lazy limitations and the fact that better (and cheaper) versions are readily available elsewhere.

Don’t you just hate when you’re trying to die in peace, only for the spirit of an elf to co-possess you? We’ve all been there.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor was a shock hit back when it was originally released in 2014. It’s not like Lord of the Rings games, especially those based on the movies, hadn’t been good in the past. But for a licensed, open world AAA action-adventure to become so lauded, to the point of winning countless Game of the Year awards from many outlets, that sure was unheard of. There are a few factors I’d point out that resulted in that game’s success.

The first one was the fact that, despite being based on Peter Jackson’s movie franchise, the story was completely original, and actually very easy to grasp. If you were a die-hard fan of Tolkien, you were then able to experience a brand new story set in between the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogies, complete with the return of a handful of known characters, the appearance of folks that had been featured only in the books, and some really well-written original creations. All while being set in one of the coolest places in all of Middle-Earth, the wicked land of Mordor.

If you don’t want to follow the plot, there’s no need to. The combat and Nemesis system carry this game.

But if you weren’t big on Lord of the Rings, or only had a very superficial knowledge of the series as a whole, the plot was also very easy to grasp. The protagonist, Talion, is a ranger who was killed in cold blood by Sauron’s army, alongside his wife and son. He had to witness it all before having his throat slit. As he wasn’t able to die in peace, he became a wraith, banished from death. He partners up with another mysterious dead elf, being brought to life in a symbiotic manner. He gains some powers, and is now hell-bent on killing every lasting general in Sauron’s army, as well as any other Uruk-hai in his path. A very simple, and very relatable, “man is too pissed off to actually die” revenge tale. You didn’t need to be into the books to grasp this easy concept.

If you know anything about Shadow of Mordor, then you know that the real reason the game became such a hit was due to its gameplay, even if, at its core, it just sounds like the most generic AAA game in existence. The reason: it is an open-world action-adventure game with climbable towers, stealth, takedowns, skill trees, you name it. The closest comparison I can think of is, believe it or not, Assassin’s Creed.

They all sound like they came from a Guy Ritchie movie, and I love it.

But you know what I’m going to mention next: the Nemesis system. This is what elevated Shadow of Mordor to utterly addictive heights. It made its world so much more alive due to implementations into the personalities and AI of each Orc general you were hunting down. They were randomly generated, sure, but they were all given stories, weaknesses, strengths, squabbles between rival generals, and most importantly, memory.

If you hunted down an Orc general and killed him, an ally of his could create a grudge with you. If you died in battle against one of those generals, they could actually get promoted. You could take advantage of one general not liking another, and sneaking into an ambush. Let them weaken each other, and then just swoop in for the quick and easy win. Finally, you could even ally up with an orc, help him climb the ranks by getting rid of the competition, and essentially having your own rat infiltrated into the army, The Departed-style.

Not all Gollum appearances in video games are disastrous.

All of this in a game from 2014, from the late stages of the Xbox 360 era, and early stages of the PS4 era. In terms of gameplay, Shadow of Mordor holds the hell up. The Arkham-inspired combat was quick and responsive, the many ways to defeat generals was pretty inventive, and the game actually felt like a sandbox: sure, there was a plot to follow, but all you wanted to do was hunt down and kill endless hordes of orcs and their generals, you could do so, and the game would reward you for that. But that was something from many, many years ago. Graphical and performance-wise, this isn’t a game that has aged as well as others. And sadly, you are stuck with playing it exactly as it was from back in the day.

Even if the game has a pretty good art style, it looks dated for today’s standards. I’m disappointed that no visual enhancements were introduced in this port; it looks EXACTLY as the older versions. No lighting effect enhancements, no new textures, nothing of the sort. Sound is a bit compressed, which is shocking, considering the fact this is a hefty 50GB file being installed on a system with such a minuscule storage capacity to begin with.

They didn’t bother remastering this game, but they had time to add gyro aiming?

And after all of that, there’s no performance improvement whatsoever. No framerate boost, no 60fps, not even a choice between visual and performance modes. You’re stuck with a 30fps cap, which, oddly enough, is still prone to occasional dips whenever things get a little too hectic onscreen. I don’t understand the decision to leave the game almost entirely untouched, nor why this port is a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. Shadow of Mordor was also released on the Xbox 360 and PS3. If those systems could cope with it, I have a hard time believing the original Switch couldn’t have handled a port as well. If that little tablet could somehow run The Witcher 3, I don’t see why Shadow of Mordor would have been beyond its capabilities.

I happen to own Shadow of Mordor on Steam, so I decided to run it on my ROG Ally for comparison. Mind you, mine isn’t exactly a beefy model. It’s the base version, with a GPU roughly comparable to a GTX 1650. Even with such modest hardware, I could easily tinker with the settings and get the game running at 60fps. That makes the Switch 2 port even more baffling. I’m left wondering whether the developers ran into some issue with the source code, or if this was simply one of the quickest port jobs in recent memory. They did find the time to add gyro aiming when using the bow, after all, so clearly something was changed.

Aw, he remembers me!

At the end of the day, this is actually a testament to just how good Shadow of Mordor is, and how well it has stood the test of time. Even with a half-baked port that did virtually nothing to improve its visuals or performance, the fantastic gameplay and intriguing premise were more than enough to make me briefly overlook the lazy porting job and enjoy this masterpiece all over again. I expected a lot more from this release, and I’m certainly disappointed by how little effort seems to have gone into it. But Shadow of Mordor is simply too good for these shortcomings to ruin the experience.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is available now on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2.

A copy of Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor was provided by the publisher.