Monolith’s Middle-earth franchise may not ever get renewed or continued at this point, especially with its notable studio developers having branched out into new endeavors like EA’s recently announced Black Panther game. This is a shame considering how unique its story was in the space of such an iconic IP, with Monolith’s Nemesis System being one of the most revered characteristics in gaming at the time. That system can still potentially be brought on in Monolith’s Wonder Woman game, but that is not all it should glean from Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War.
Parallels can be drawn between the Middle-earth games and how a Wonder Woman game could look, but nothing has been shared about it besides its title logo and a shot of Diana herself. Wonder Woman brandishing a sword could pick up the bones of Talion wielding his own, for example, and her abilities could lean on Celebrimbor’s mechanics. Rather, in terms of how Wonder Woman will seemingly have the titular Amazon uniting two worlds, there is a one-to-one approach to level design that Monolith could take to ensure that the island of Themyscira and the known world feel distinct.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Had Two Separate Open Worlds
Shadow of Mordor had a much more restrictive approach to an open world than its sequel, which made sense due to the fact that Shadow of War has players conquering individual regions and such. Shadow of Mordor is a more intimate narrative that hones in on Talion and Celebrimbor tightly, and the titular Mordor region is truly its standout character. Shadow of Mordor does not have the player pass to a realm that is intentionally withdrawn from the rest of the world, but it does feature an easy way for Wonder Woman to do so.
The initial map is quite large before players have abilities allowing them to traverse Udun’s desolate plains with haste, but it is still fairly small by many open-world games’ standards. Instead, unassuming players might be surprised to discover that another region is accessible later on in Shadow of Mordor and presents its own open-world map of Nurn. Maneuvering between both regions is done via the map with fast travel, and it seems like crossing from Themyscira to the known world would surely benefit from a similar approach.
It is currently unknown if both its regions will actually be accessible or if players go back and forth, but it is reportedly an open-world game and therefore needs to encompass quite a bit of land mass in order to earn that distinction. Uniting two worlds seemingly refers to the same premise as in the Wonder Woman movie from 2017 that was set during WW1, and it would be interesting to see how it could be unique in its own storytelling if it does want to try to retread that ground, but two regions would be necessary regardless.
If uniting two worlds isn’t about uniting Themyscira and the known world of Earth then that would be a huge surprise, and uniting Themyscira with the known world would supposedly need to take place at a time when these worlds are at odds with one another. It will all depend on when and where the game takes place, but fast travel to a completely isolated part of the world would not necessarily require a seamless and immersive transition, allowing a simple fast travel option to do the trick for when Diana may want to cross over to Metropolis or Gotham City.
Wonder Woman is currently in development.