Shadows of content locked again

With the growing trend of locking content behind a paywall, Shadow of Mordor seems to be the culprit of another such instance. The pre-order bonuses for Shadow of Mordor include the Flame of Anor Rune, The Deadly Archer Rune, the Dark Ranger skin and access to leaderboards. Furthermore, it includes a Test of Power Challenge, a whole another game mode which lets you fight against Sauron’s head captains in order to earn rare and powerful runes.

This is in addition to all the content that has been locked behind the Season Pass for Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, which includes its own set of new modes. This doesn’t mean Shadow of Mordor will be incomplete, but we haven’t seen many games which provide so many extra bonuses for those who pre-order.

Destiny is another game to come under fire for lack of content and questionable DLC practices. The expansion pass was detailed months before the game released, and the first line-up of add-ons is coming in December, just three months after launch. Recently, a glitch allowed players to see what the Expansion Pass has to offer in the form of map markers for new missions, strikes, raids, crucible maps and much more.

As games become more expensive to produce, locking missions or extra game modes behind pre-order bonuses and Season Passes; and in some extreme cases on disk DLC, have become a common practice now. The game might end up being well received, but publishers have to give consumers reasons to not sell their copy of the game without using cheap tactics.