head to head

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime cover artvsMiddle-earth: Shadow of Mordor cover art

Lovers in a Dangerous SpacetimevsMiddle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime leans Execution (Practiced Mastery); Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor leans Optimization (Practiced Mastery).

EXECUTION6 /10READS1 /10VARIANCE4 /10OPTIMIZATION5 /10
Lovers in a Dangerous SpacetimeMiddle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Axis by axis

Execution6 vs 5

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime leans harder on execution: Rotating ship stations and aiming cannons requires fast, precise control

Reads1 vs 1

Even - both lean on reads about the same.

Variance4 vs 4

Even - both lean on variance about the same.

Optimization5 vs 6

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor leans harder on optimization: Intel gathering and exploiting known weaknesses solves fights

Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.

full breakdown

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

full breakdown

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor