Middle-earth: Shadow of War's Desolation of Mordor expansion launches

The Monolith Productions' action RPG from last year, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, received its second story expansion DLC today: Desolation of Mordor. The expansion has players going to the new eastern desert region of Lithlad for more conquering purposes, and lets players recruit mercenaries to make human armies for a change.

Minas Ithil Seargent, Baranor, serves as the main protagonist of the expansion, and since he's a human, there aren’t any wraith powers, easy revives, or the power of the New Ring to help players in the new questline, which is described as a "rogue-like campaign mode."

Torvin the Dwarven Hunter from the original game also makes a return in this expansion, who brings in new equipment and tools for players such as shields, gauntlets, grapples, and more.

Meanwhile, the base game has received a free content update as well, bringing the following enhancements and features:

Nemesis System Enhancements – Overlords can now have bodyguards, who function the same as Warchief bodyguards and are able to deploy spies.

Brutal Difficulty – Enemies are as fast and lethal as on Gravewalker difficulty, but damage is increased greatly, and Might and Wrath will fill up faster allowing players to use more special moves.

New Player Skin – Choose to appear as Baranor in the main story campaign.

Photo Mode Upgrades – New stickers, styles and filters inspired by the Desolation of Mordor Story Expansion.

Online Fight Pits & Online Conquests Update – Search for friends by player name when battling it out in online modes.

The Middle-earth: Shadow of War Desolation of Mordor expansion is available now for all platforms with a $19.99 price tag when purchasing it standalone, while Gold Edition owners, as well as Full Expansion Pass and Story Expansion Pass owners receive the new adventure as part of the packages.

The microtransactions purging update for the game is still on track to be released later this year, but the game's premium currency, Gold, will no longer be purchasable starting today. The upcoming update will also carry an overhauled section of the campaign, updates to progression, the Nemesis system, and more.