One does not simply put Shadow of Mordor 2 on their resume before its announced

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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor 2 is riding a caragor out of the Swamps of Inevitability and into the verdant hills of Leak-dor as we speak. Monolith Productions, which led work on the first game, has several employees citing an “unannounced title” on their LinkedIn profiles, and an accomplished stunt and motion capture performer has already added the sequel to her resume (opens in new tab).

Lauren Mary Kim (who has also worked on Furious 7 and BioShock Infinite (opens in new tab)) cites “Shadows of Mordor 2” stunts and acting as her most recent motion capture experience, via Nerdleaks (opens in new tab). She lists Blur as the employer for that job, which likely refers to Blur Studio, the production company behind pretty much every CGI video game trailer not made in-house at Blizzard or Square Enix. The first Shadow of Mordor (opens in new tab) turned (and severed) heads at E3 in 2014 with a CG trailer (opens in new tab), and its sequel may do the same.

Update: Kim reportedly contacted WCCFtech (opens in new tab) to state that the listing was in error, chalking it up to a mistake in the website’s database. While this distances her from the project, it doesn’t change much else – Shadow(s) of Mordor 2 apparently exists somewhere in the iStunt database, even if it was assigned to the wrong person.

As for Monolith proper, Shadow of Mordor senior designer Jed Bellini (opens in new tab) lists himself as lead world designer “working with a team of talented designers on an unannounced title” since August 2015. And Jobye-Kyle Karmaker (opens in new tab) says he has been at work as a senior world artist on an unannounced project since February 2016, having left his position at Ubisoft Toronto (where he worked on Far Cry Primal (opens in new tab)’s biomes, among other roles) in January. Here’s the most pertinent part of Bellini’s profile:

And Karmaker’s:

Granted, Bellini and Karmaker may be working on separate projects. But Shadow of Mordor was a surprise hit when it came out back in September 2014, so it seems likely that owner/publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment would have Monolith focus on delivering a sequel while the rune-engraved iron is hot. I’d be glad to take another stab at fighting nemeses and raising armies with all the knowledge gained from the first game.

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