Watch us play Middle-earth: Shadow of War and wince at our caragor's noble sacrifice

You mess with Talion in Middle-earth: Shadow of War? Fine, so does everybody else. You mess with his caragor? Oh, buddy. You've had it now. That's the lesson we taught orcish warmonger Ar-Benu in our hands-on time with the game, part of which you can watch above in our full 9-minute playthrough of the Mounted Massacre mission. And scroll on for the highlight reel.

Execution-by-orc is frickin' brutal

Burning orcs are extra scary

Need to clear a crowd? It's ghost elf time

Your caragor will die to save you

But you can still make friends

Read our Middle-earth: Shadow of War news recap for more detailed info and check out how Shadow of War learned from the reactions to the first game.

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.