The Bright Lord, the final DLC release for Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, will set players off as the Elf Celebrimbor, in the days when he was still flesh and bone. The DLC picks up immediately after his flight from Mordor with the One Ring, and ends with a climactic battle with Sauron.
Design Director Michael de Plater told GameSpot that The Bright Lord will be "quite a lot tougher" than the original campaign. Orcs of this era are tougher, more heavily armored, more disciplined, and they'll actively hunt players, making ambushes more likely. But Celebrimbor has been upgraded as well, with greater speed, agility, and more powerful abilities.
"[The Bright Lord] has enabled us to go into Mordor at a time when Sauron’s power was at its height," de Plater said. "In Shadow of Mordor he’s just returned. It's all pretty much in chaos, Orcs are running around rioting, it’s very untamed. We were able to go back and forge the Orcs into this more disciplined and elite war machine."
The DLC will end with a battle against Sauron himself, which de Plater said will be "the most epic, momentous final boss fight" the studio could create. It's not likely to go well for Celebrimbor, but it will hopefully be a better experience for players: de Plater said the developers are aiming to "make up for the final [Shadow of Mordor] boss fight against the Black Hand, which wasn't so momentous."
One spot of caution for gamers playing Shadow of Mordor on a borderline system: The latest update on Steam warns that the Bright Lord DLC "requires slightly higher system specs than the Main Game Campaign," so players experiencing performance problems will need to lower their settings. The Bright Lord will be out "soon," but a solid release date has not yet been announced.
