An original story based on the legendarium created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the game takes place between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings film trilogies.

The player controls Talion, a Gondorian Ranger who bonds with the wraith of the Elf Lord Celebrimbor, as the two set out to avenge the deaths of their loved ones.

The game introduces the Nemesis System, which allows the artificial intelligence of non-playable characters to remember their prior interactions with Talion and react accordingly in subsequent encounters.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a third-person open world action-adventure video game, where the player controls a ranger by the name of Talion who seeks revenge on the forces of Sauron after his family, consisting of his wife and son, are killed by those that lead them.

[5][6][7] The player also has the freedom to pursue side quests and roam around Mordor, with special activities to collect specific flora or to hunt certain creatures, or to find old artifacts or Elvish seals.

[12] Stealth is a critical element in some missions; several areas are considered Strongholds and should Talion's presence be discovered, an alarm will sound and more Uruks will arrive to try to kill him.

[20] At this point, the player can use the Nemesis system to trigger infighting within the Uruk forces which they can then directly participate in, helping to weaken the army further.

[8] Talion discovers that the wraith who revived him is Celebrimbor (voiced by Alastair Duncan), the greatest Elven smith master of the Second Age, who also seeks revenge against Sauron.

Talion, his wife Ioreth, and his son, Dirhael, are captured and ritually sacrificed by the Black Hand in an attempt to summon the wraith of the Elf Lord Celebrimbor.

Talion helps Ratbag ascend the ranks to the level of warchief by killing each of his immediate superiors, and aids Hirgon in destroying a statue of Sauron.

Talion, however, still carries out Saruman's plan, leading an army of mind-controlled orcs in an assault against the Black Hand's stronghold at Ered Glamhoth.

According to design director Michael de Plater, Shadow of Mordor was developed in parallel with Guardians of Middle-earth but handled by a separate team.

[30] Shadow of Mordor was Monolith's first third-person open-world video game, and de Plater considered its development an educational experience for the studio.

[30] In 2019, it was revealed that Monolith had worked on a standalone Batman video game based on the Dark Knight trilogy of films made by Christopher Nolan.

[33] The studio had to cancel the project, codenamed Apollo, after one-and-a-half year of development, though elements from that game, such as the nemesis system, were reusued in Shadow of Mordor.

It was made more complex during the game's early development, incorporating personal relationships among Orcs, but was later pared down when the studio considered it too complicated.

[29] To prevent inaccuracies, Monolith consulted several Tolkien scholars from Warner Bros. and collaborated with Wētā Workshop (Jackson's design company) on the game's special effects and scenery.

[39] To depict well-known characters the company partnered with Middle-earth Enterprises, the franchise-rights holder, to prevent misuse and contradiction between the game's story and Tolkien's.

[44] The team hired David Salo, a linguist who worked on Tolkien's languages for the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, to develop the Orcs' Black Speech.

[41] Shadow of Mordor bridges the gap between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, with the team wanting to show iconic elements of the universe in an original way.

Art director Phil Straub considered consistency with the lore and presenting "something visually new" and realistic the most important elements of creating the game.

[41] To depict volcanic activity, the studio sent a team to Eastern Washington and the Columbia River plateau to photograph a volcano;[45] and studied photos of Iceland and New Zealand and yellow stone found worldwide.

[59] The final DLC for Shadow of Mordor, titled The Bright Lord, is set 3,000 years before the main campaign and allows players to control Talion's companion, Celebrimbor.

According to Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar, the system elevated Shadow of Mordor to excellence by making its villains memorable and adding personality to its protagonist.

[18] Brad Shoemaker of Giant Bomb wrote that the system created many distinctive characters and its side content extended the game's longevity.

Shoemaker and Sliwinski compared it to the rhythm-based combat system of the Batman: Arkham game series; both found it engaging and fluid.

[76] Dan Stapleton of IGN wrote that the story introduced memorable characters but would not make sense to fans of the series, and his interest in the game waned towards its end.

According to Thomas Morgan of Eurogamer its frame rate was substandard, and Yannick LeJacq of Kotaku cited "many technical hiccups and glitches".

[83][84] Shadow of Mordor was well received by BioShock series creator Ken Levine, who called it the first open-world game with a non-linear story and narrative and said he would bring some of its elements to his upcoming science-fiction project, Judas.

[86][87] When Shadow of Mordor was introduced, Monolith was accused by former Ubisoft employee Charles Randall of using assets (such as the protagonist-animation code) from Assassin's Creed II.