Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War reach a Nintendo console for the first time today
Aspyr's Middle-earth: Shadow Bundle lands on Switch 2 on September 30, pairing the Game of the Year and Definitive Editions with all their expansions. Pre-orders cut the $69.99 bundle in half.
Aspyr's Middle-earth: Shadow Bundle arrives on Nintendo Switch 2 today, September 30, bringing Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War - and the Nemesis System - to a Nintendo console for the first time.
What's in the box
The bundle pairs Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition with Middle-earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition, so the expansions come along. Shadow of Mordor's side includes the Lord of the Hunt and The Bright Lord story missions plus the Guardians of the Flaming Eye warband mission; Shadow of War's covers the Desolation of Mordor and Blade of Galadriel story expansions along with its tribe-based add-ons and their playable characters.
The bundle is $69.99 with a pre-order price of $34.99, and both games are sold separately - Shadow of Mordor at $19.99 and Shadow of War at $49.99, each discounted 50 percent for pre-orders. These are the same editions that previously shipped on PS4, Xbox One and PC, with Shadow of Mordor also having appeared on PS3 and Xbox 360.
The Nemesis System, portable
The draw is the Nemesis System, the procedural rival generator that remembers which orc you failed to kill and promotes it. It was the most-copied idea neither sequel's publisher ever licensed out, and it has never been playable in handheld before.
Why it matters
Aspyr has been steadily working through Warner Bros.' Middle-earth back catalogue - War in the North came back in August and gets a physical run in October - and this is the part of it people actually ask for. On Switch 2, in handheld, is a genuinely new way to play it.
Why it matters
Two well-regarded action games built on a system nobody else could copy are reaching Nintendo hardware, and handheld play is the one context they have never been available in.