The upcoming Middle-earth: Shadow of War open world action-adventure video game has been pushed back to October. The game is a sequel to the 2014 Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which received critical acclaim for its combat, open-world design, game lore, and the its Nemesis System based on J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Middle-earth: Shadows of War will continue the previous games narrative based on Tolkien's legendarium (the term for the entirety of his mythopoetic writing that forms the background to The Lord of the Rings), which follows the story of the ranger Talion, who shares his body with the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor, as they use the power from one of the infamous rings of power to create an army to fight against Sauron and his Nazgûl forces. In this installment, Talion has forged a new ring of power, which his elf spirit believes can be controlled to avoid becoming a Dark Lord and, instead, used to become a powerful king. Talion, who has less interest in power, believes his elf spirit and agrees to help in the war against Sauron and his new army.

Monolith Productions has officially confirmed that Middle-earth: Shadows of War is being pushed back from its original August release date to October 10, 2017 in the U.S. (places such as Australia, New Zealand and Japan will have a different release date) in order to insure delivery of the highest game-play quality possible for players. Here is the official statement from the Shadow of War team, on the matter:

Middle-earth: Shadow of War expands gameplay in every dimension, including the massive open world, the story, the RPG systems, and personal player stories of the Nemesis System. As with Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Monolith is committed to delivering the highest quality experience. In order to do this, we have made the difficult decision to move our launch date to ensure that Middle-earth: Shadow of War will deliver on that promise.

We understand that it might be disappointing to have to wait a little longer for the release and are sorry for the delay, but we are working hard to make an amazing game. We’re excited to show more at E3.

Talion and his Ring of Power in Middle-earth Shadow of War

The game-play of the Middle-earth saga is a third-person action-adventure game with role-playing elements set in the open world environment of the evil lands of Mordor and other territories where the player can control Talion, who has the combined skills of a ranger of Gondor and those of an elf spirit provided by the one who resides in his body. The game will also expand upon the first installment's complex Nemesis System, which creates randomly-named enemies in Sauron's army that are generated uniquely based on each play-through of the game (as well as Talion's actions and choices).

The game will also be taking heavy inspiration from director Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film adaptations that were released between 2001 to 2003 and 2012 to 2014 and attracted stars like Viggo Mortensen, Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Sean Bean, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage and Benedict Cumberbatch to step into the fantastical world of Middle-earth - playing characters ranging from wise wizards to peaceful hobbit farmers to elf rangers and everything in between.

NEXT: The 15 Most Powerful Lord of the Rings Characters

Middle-earth: Shadows of War becomes available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows (via Steam) and the "Play Anywhere" program for Windows 10 (with the Xbox One version) in the U.S. starting October 10, 2017.

Source: Monolith Productions