Middle-earth: Shadow of War coming to Xbox One, Windows 10, and Project Scorpio

The Xbox team has just announced that Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the sequel to Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, will be released on Xbox One and Windows 10 on August 22. The AAA game will be an Xbox Play Anywhere title, which means that consumers who purchase the digital version of the game will be able to play it on both platforms at no additional cost.

“The title will also be available for Project Scorpio following the console’s launch this holiday season,” added the Xbox team, and we’re quite surprised to see the upcoming console being mentioned in the announcement.

Indeed, all pre-existing Xbox One games are expected to be backward compatible on Project Scorpio, though we also know that some upcoming Xbox One games will be optimized for the 4K-ready gaming console. It’s not clear yet if Middle-earth: Shadow of War will be one of them or if the Xbox team is just building hype around Project Scorpio.

As for the game itself, it’s once again being developed by Monolith Productions and those of you who played the previous title should be in familiar territory:

The open-world action-adventure game is brought to life once more through an expanded version of the award-winning Nemesis System. The robust personalization from the first game is now applied to the entire world where environments and characters are all shaped by player actions and decisions, creating a personal world unique to every gameplay experience.

The game will be available for digital pre-order on the Xbox Store and Windows Store in the coming days, though pricing details are still unknown. Following the launch of Resident Evil 7 last month, it’s great to see another third-party AAA game being added to the Xbox Play Anywhere list. But more importantly, it’s interesting to see Microsoft already communicating about Project Scorpio while we’re still months away from its release.