Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor includes "exclusive" Orc Warband mission

Like many triple-A games these days, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor will offer fans a "season pass," providing access to a future DLC releases at a discounted price.

will offer fans a "season pass," providing access to a future DLC releases at a discounted price. Among the coming content is a mission that will let players step into the ghostly boots of Cerebrimbor and an "exclusive" face-off against Sauron's best troops.

The season pass includes two new story-based missions: Lord of the Hunt, in which players will "discover hidden lairs, earn unique runes and face off against powerful monsters," and The Bright Lord, which as the title suggests puts the Elven wraith front-and-center in the battle against evil. Season passers will also get early access to the Trials of War leaderboard challenge, the "exclusive" Guardians of the Flaming Eye Orc Warband mission, and unspecified "future content," like runes, skins and whatever else bubbles up to the surface.

The Shadow of Mordor season pass is currently listed at $25 at GameStop, and I can't decide if that's a terrible price or not. It is a fair chunk of additional content, although precisely how much depends entirely on how generous WBIE is going to be with the "additional future add-on content." But it's also nearly half the price of the game itself, which in my eyes is a little hard to swallow for what is supposed to be bonus content.

I'm not entirely clear on whether the "exclusivity" of the Guardians of the Flaming Eye mission means that it will only be available to those who spring for the season pass, or if it's the squishier use of "exclusive" that's become popular with publishersthese days. GameStop also doesn't list a season pass for the PC version of the game, although the promotional image does carry the PC logo. We've reached out to Warner for clarification.