10) Lord of the Rings Shadow of Mordor – 77 Quests
Editor’s note: For this article, a “quest” is defined as a mission listed in a quest log. We are not counting MMORPGs and have only included one entry per franchise.
Furthermore, several games mentioned here feature lengthy objectives that, while they are a significant time investment and do represent tasks that often comprise traditional quests, are not recorded in this fashion and are therefore not included. For example, not all 120 shrines in Breath of the Wild count as quests, but the 42 “shrine quests” noted in the adventure log certainly do.
Quest lists have been pulled from various guides, walkthroughs and wikis, loaded into excel and counted.
Upon its release, Shadow of Mordor was lauded by critics for its Nemesis combat system (known in-game as Sauron’s Army), which randomly generates unique enemies. A refreshingly innovative mechanic, indeed; each playthrough articulates the game with a completely different set of notorious bad guys.
Of course, branching narrative through dialogue choice, hidden quests, and unlockable characters have long been a mainstay feature of role-playing games. In the world of Shadow of Mordor, however, it is combat that determines and punctuates the ebb and flow of proceedings, offering a terrific (and compelling) amount of replayability. So, while the game’s (relatively) modest 77 quests might initially surprise, it’s worth remembering the lion’s share of playtime is spent marauding unique enemy commanders.
20 main story quests, 24 rescue missions and 33 weapon challenges comprise Shadow of Mordor’s total.
