Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

• Forge at the towers for fast travel.

• Normal orcs can still be interrogated - they will only reveal unidentified commanders, though.

• Each area tells you which plants grow for your gathering side quest.

• Get used to the parry system (it's Batman), and the dodge system. Harder enemies cannot be parried so you'll get the dodge prompt for those.

• Grab the talent that lets you explode campsites, it'll rack up easy kill and you can lure enemies/commanders to them. You cannot damage yourself in them.

• You can toggle Detective Mode while aiming with your bow.

• There's a Kill 100 Orcs in a coliseum side quest, you may want to hold off on this until you get some runes that siphon/restore life when conditions are met.

• When commanders are fleeing or when they are weakened (their outline will turn green) you can grab them.

• If you see places with 3 Elf-Arrows next to each other, this typically means to use your bow.

• Some world locations require you to squeeze between objects in order to get to objectives.

• Don't be afraid to die. This will create a Nemesis for you.

• The skill that lets you shoot an orc in the leg to immobilize them doesn't sound that useful in combat, but its super useful to pin down a fleeing enemy Warchief so you can catch and kill/brand them. Sometimes trying to run them down on foot can be annoying.

• The base level of a Rune is based on the level of the Captain or Warchief you kill. So sometimes it is useful to let Captains get more powerful.

• Power Struggle Missions give you 40 Power points whether you kill the Captain or not, as long as you participate. So don't feel obliged to kill the Captain in the mission each time.

• Shadow Strike doesn't hurt enemies who are Immune to Ranged, but it still teleports you to them, which is useful if they're fleeing.

• When the tutorial ends, you're dumped out into a wide-open world, free to do what you want, but it's not a terrible idea to do some of the first few main missions right away, because they can unlock new gameplay things, and in certain cases, new skills as well.