 Shadow of Mordor 's combat was considered excellent by most critics . Shoemaker and Sliwinski compared it to the rhythm @-@ based combat system of the Batman : Arkham game series ; both found it engaging and fluid . Shoemaker praised the game 's combat variety ; the combination of the combat and nemesis systems created " a specific kind of chaotic , emergent nonsense " desirable in an open world game . According to Sliwinski and Shoemaker , even without the Nemesis system the combat system would make the game compelling . Although Matt Miller of Game Informer found the game 's focus on killing made it repetitive , failing to capture the charm of its inspirations Assassin 's Creed and Batman : Arkham , Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot called Shadow of Mordor 's combat an improvement of the Assassin 's Creed formula . 
