Shadow of War: Upon Further Review, the Shadow Wars

It took about 10~12 hours but I was able to complete the Shadow Wars over the weekend. I was happy to see the "true" ending but really it feels more like an epilogue and the "real" ending was the conclusion of Act III.

Zero Pennies Were Spent In The Making Of This Platinum

I did not enjoy the gameplay of the Shadow War. It felt like something that was literally bolted onto the end of the game just to prolong gameplay and try and sell microtransactions. I say try because they are completely unnecessary. I didn't spend any money and I was able to do it and I'm by no means great at this game.

I also didn't have to grind. I just defended my towers. All told you'll have to defend them about 20 times. Also you can easily dominate the invading elite and legendary Uruks which you can use to help defend your keep in further stages of the Shadow War.

Bottom line some irresponsible people in the games media wanted to generate clicks for the sites and said you have to spend money to finish this game. Its just absolutely not true.  But now a large part of the community has latched onto this narrative and ran with it.

What is true is the microtransactions are there for you to buy. You can get powerful members for your army. But you don't need to. It really won't ever speed things up for you that much. I was never grinding to get my army's level up. It was just defending keeps... a lot. It was not fun. It was in fact kind of terrible.