Servers turned off for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

WB Games announced on Thursday that it had quietly disabled online services for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor just two days prior. That means the 2014 game’s Nemesis Forge and Vendetta missions are no longer available to players.

The Nemesis Forge feature was added to Shadow of Mordor shortly before the 2017 sequel Middle-earth: Shadow of War. With it, players could play in a sandbox environment, with all skills unlocked, against the biggest orc enemies they had built up over their main playthrough. This also ends the ability to import one’s Nemesis or Follower from Shadow of Mordor into Shadow of War, although Shadow of War’s online support is not affected.

The Vendetta missions tasked players with killing an orc captain who had killed another (human) player from their friends list. It was connected to the “Repaid in Blood” achievement/trophy (its instructions: “complete a Vendetta Mission”), which WB Games said will still be awarded (it didn’t say how, though).

The achievements “The Hunt is My Mistress” and “Lord of the Ring” are likewise still unlockable, although access to leaderboards is now cut off. “The Hunt is My Mistress” is part of the Trials of War DLC’s “Test of the Wild” challenge mode, and “Lord of the Ring” was given for the “Test of the Ring” challenge.

The Epic Runes “Orc Hunter,” and “Gravewalker,” are now automatically awarded to all players since they can’t connect to the WBPlay platform to collect them.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Games in September 2014 for PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One. It was a commercial and critical success, collecting several game-of-the-year nods. The sequel, Shadow of War, was also developed by Monolith, and improved the “Nemesis System” that procedurally generated boss enemies based on their encounters with the player.