Why uruk not orcs

[Walk the moon]

isnt saurons army made up of orcs and just a few black orcs called uruks and sarumas army where uruk-hai why are all the mordor forces called uruks in this Game ?

[BuddySloth]

They're all Uruks for the game's systems to make more sense, basically. Regular Orcs wouldn't pose the correct level of threat for the combat to feel good and the Nemesis system is meant to allow literally any of the Uruks you come up against to theoretically be promoted to leadership positions if they do something impressive, such as defeating you in battle. Having normal weaselly Orcs somehow make it to Legendary Captain would seem weird.

That's my theory, anyway. I'm not sure if the devs have ever mentioned their rationale anywhere.

[Sirius]

That's a pretty good theory^

Lore wise though, "Uruk" just means "Orc" in the Mordor language.
And there are way more "types" of Uruk as, for example, the movies show.

Goblin, Uruk, Orc, all three names are different languages for the same general thing, and there are even more (pretty much every language has their own name)

Uruk-Hai is a whole "new" designation Saruman made up for his own brand. I think.

[ULTRA]

Actually I think that "uruks" purely refers to the special, more cognizant form of orcs. There's no reason for the army to be entirely uruks in this game, even though you can clearly see that some of the enemies and even captains are ordinary orcs but are referred to as "uruks" anyway.

It is correct that "uruk" means "orc" but it was always in reference to the soldier/warrior orcs. The smaller breeds of orc are not "uruks" even though they're present in the game.

[Ole_Jones]

Uruk does mean Orc, there is no difference.

However, Sarumans Uruk-Hai (which literally just means "orc folk") were better than the average Morder orc.

It isincorrect for the game to have isengard style Uruk-Hai in Morder pre-LotR. But they look much coller. Morder Orcs are wide, short and have stubby skinny legs. They look stupid as hell, which is why you dont see that design in any of the media.

[Sirius]

Are they, though? Isengard-style orcs I mean?

I may be blind (or trying hard to repress), but even though there are quite many huge, dangerous Uruks present in the game, I have seen nothing that would suggest Isengard-type ones.

But yeah, there shouldn't be so many of them (maybe a few chieftains or something), it would make more sense if the bulk of them would be the Ratbag kind of orc.

[BuddySloth]

Accurate to the lore or not, the game specifically says that these are "Uruks" and mentions that they are more threatening and also a head or two taller than regular "Orcs".

It was definitely an intentional design decision to differentiate the enemies in this game from mere orcs. The game in fact never mentions another breed of orcs being present, at least as far as I've gotten in the game.

[Sirius]

Yet we have a few very distinctive "types".
The huge, usually shield bearing fatty
The slim, wiry archer types
The half-trollish (for lack of a better word) berserker, muscular type
Ratbag (lol)
The ones I likely forgot

Point is, that variety of orc does seem to imply different clans, since as far as I know, only Saruman vat-grows them and so the others must have been "collected" from different tribes.

Could be I'm wrong and Sauron clones his army as well? I don't think so, but not sure (it's been really long since I read the books and other printed media)

[BuddySloth]

I believe the physical "types" are just the game trying to present a random sampling of Uruks. Each individual is supposed to be unique, after all, and bodies are as unique as faces. I could be wrong here, I suppose, but there's literally nothing in the text of the game to support the idea that we're actually looking at different breeds or clans. In fact, to the contrary, the Uruks in the game are constantly forming and reforming new groups of seemingly random individuals as power vaccuums are created and filled.

[Maenor Haeronor]

I wouldn't worry about that in a game were Celebrimbor goes Wraith to fight Sauron and take the ring .... and a lonely Ranger takes down thousands of Orcs running ON mordor (Walk into mordor means nothing to this guy) .... i mean if a Lore-Friendly Middle Earth game is what you want! You should play War in the North which is surprisingly good on the story side of it (Not much the gameplay) ... specially loving how they managed the Dragon and it's dialogue ... I'd say is even better than how Tolkien or Jackson aproached Smaug ... is way more smarter and logical.

Best Tolkien-friendly game evar!!

[BuddySloth]

Yeah with all the liberties this game took, I'm still a bit bummed that we're riding Caragors and fighting Graugs instead of Wargs and Trolls. Like, sure, yeah, I know Wargs aren't native to Mordor or whatever. I don't care. Making up a whole new menagerie of animals we've never heard of but that just so happen to look like modded skins for trolls and wargs is much more jarring.

[Sirius]

Of course. Just to be clear: I just keep picking for reasons.
I'm aware that the creators of the game probably didn't even put in as much thought as we have in this thread.

And to be fair, I have no issues at all with the game's representation of the Mordor orcs.

Still, nitpicking is fun sometimes

[Cu]

Saruman's uruk-hai were minnions of saruman, they developed by saruman and branded by saruman.
"MORDOR URUKS ARE NOT URUK-HAI"
Well not uruk-hai in the first trilogy. In movie uruk-hai are nearly uninvinsible for regular orc because they don't care if they die in battle. Remember Lurtz and Aragorn scence, Aragorn cut Lurtz' arm and Lurtz still tries to bite Aragorn. Do you see any fleeing uruk-hai in movies? But there are fleeing orcs both game and movie.

[ULTRA]

Messaggio originale di Jack Reaver:

Messaggio originale di maenor.haeronor:

I wouldn't worry about that in a game were Celebrimbor goes Wraith to fight Sauron and take the ring .... and a lonely Ranger takes down thousands of Orcs running ON mordor (Walk into mordor means nothing to this guy) .... i mean if a Lore-Friendly Middle Earth game is what you want! You should play War in the North which is surprisingly good on the story side of it (Not much the gameplay) ... specially loving how they managed the Dragon and it's dialogue ... I'd say is even better than how Tolkien or Jackson aproached Smaug ... is way more smarter and logical.

Best Tolkien-friendly game evar!!

One thing that I'd like to pick out out since it's ticking in the back of my mind, you forgot this ranger is basically immortal, can slow time and headshot several orcs and burn the rest, brand orcs to make them fight theirselves, the ability to turn invisible, brand the wildlife around mordor, etc. Point is it's not just "a lonely Ranger". That's the equivalent of calling Superman a strong guy.

he also has super senses of some kind, like the ability to detect someone is attacking him within a second or two and how to counter the attack perfectly