Shadow of Mordor’s rune and weapon system revealed

Warner Bros and Monolith Productions’ vision of pre-Lord of the Rings Middle-earth talks weapons and rune-crafting in the newest trailer for the game.

Runes will play a big part in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and with Talion’s quest for vengeance against the Orc’s and Sauron. We’ve seen his powers in other trailers for the game, and his weaponry has been fairly well defined already, but the rune crafting system really adds in a nice little extra level of interaction with the world that Monolith has created.

As to those magic runes, Warner Bros has announced that there are special edition carvings (as well as a special skin) that you’ll get with the UK edition of the game if you pre-order now.

• Deadly Archer Rune
  • Talion will deal extra damage when executing ranged headshots against Sauron’s Captains
• Flame of Arnor Rune
  • Talion can ignite his blade by achieving a high combo count and incinerate his enemies
• Captain of the Watch / Hidden Blade Rune
  • “Captain of the Watch” character skin and the Hidden Blade Rune – Talion can deal extra damage when executing stealth attacks against Sauron’s Captains
• Orc Slayer Rune
  • Talion will decimate Sauron’s Captains with increased damage from special attacks

And in addition to all that, everyone who pre-orders the game will get access to the Dark Ranger pack. That little gem includes a new costume (which’d make for new suits for Talion including the just announced one) and a challenge mode that you won’t find elsewhere at launch. And speaking of, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor lands on the Xbox One/360, PS4/3, and PC on October 7th.