I don't think anything can top this game this year. It does (almost) everything right, from the look of the game to the just big enough open world. The combat is the best "Batman-combat" to date, being just hard enough to pose a challenge the entire game while also being easy enough to not become annoying. Not even going to start gushing about the Nemesis-system, as I feel that has been praised by everyone, but it really makes the game special.

And now they have done yet another thing that cements it as my "Game of the Year". Such a simple little thing that most games should have. A photo mode. Why don't more games add this? Is it difficult to implement, is it something that just doesn't occur to the ones who could add it in? Would be interesting to know. I do hope more games follow suit after this, because it's fun to try and capture cool moments. Then slap some silly filter on it.

Gallery

Whelp, I know what I'm doing next time I play.

@jaqen_hghar:

That's one thing I enjoy about Steam. F12 is instant screenshot, any game anytime.

Back on consoles, I had a lot of fun with the screenshot function in Dragon's Dogma too.

You got some nice shots!

Wait so what is this?

Screen capture mode on consoles I'm guessing?

If so that's cool, I know the vita does this.

I've definitely become pretty accustomed to snapping screenshots in video games through steam in recent years, it's amazing how some of the action shots come out as a still. It's almost a bit of a mini game trying to capture shots with the best composition.

Yeah I saw on the update change list yesterday but didn't mess with it any, is it any different then steam's own screenshot system? or does it have sort of fancy thing where it lets you position the camera and stuff like that?

@onarum: It's very fancy. You can move the camera around, add filters, change depth of field, optionally add a watermark, and more!

I read that this feature doesn't work on xbox one. If so, that's a bummer.

let me bling these photos up or else.

@jimipeppr: nice, that is very neat, Cant wait to take some awesome shots of the epic final showdown between me and Takra the dumb, I love that guy, he'll probably have something very insightful to say too like "I'm gonna kill you, till you're dead"

He's no joke though, saw the bastard kill a freaking caragor with one swing... and before he did it he said "hey you beastie.. in the cage", again I love that guy.

I thought this one I took came out pretty awesome. I didn't touch this up it came straight from the game.

That is pretty cool.

Add it to the list of features I expect more games to ripoff Mordor...

I was using it on xbox one yesterday so dont know why people would be writing that.

@hermes: yeh becouse Shadow of Mordor is totally not ripping this off someone else right? ...

Someone need to make a concept page for photo mode to catch this trend.

I really appreciate the adoption of this kind of photo mode in this generation. I love being able to pause the action mid-craziness and then swooping about with the camera just looking at the details that I never see when I'm actually playing.

I sincerely wish that GTA V gets something like this in addition to its camera phone style screen shots. I'd love to be able to get some shots of car chases without having to wrestle with framing photographs at the same time as dodging traffic.

@rethla: The only other games I can think of at the top of my head that has a similar thing is racing and sports games. The fact that you just press a button, everything is paused and you can move some about, change settings, add filters and frames etc is, to me, new in such a game. But hey, I might have forgotten some game.

I realize I didn't really say much about the mode itself, but I see several of you have remedied that. My shots are from the PC version by the way, but the best part about it is the fact that you can do this on consoles as well. Usually don't get stuff like that on consoles I feel.

@jaqen_hghar: The last of us and Infamous SS has photo mode.

@rethla: Wait, Last of Us? Man, I don't remember that... But that is a great game to have such a thing. Never played Infamous Second Son, so had no idea if that had it.
But still, not many games got it so far. The more good games that implement it, the higher chance for a lot of games implementing it in the future. Which would be awesome.

@rethla said:

Like where?

Outside of the basic F12 feature included in steam games (and that is a steam feature, not a game feature) and some older PC games, I don't recall many examples that have that. Even less that allow some level of twitching them within the game, and even less if you consider console games...

inFamous Second Son did this

Infamous Second Son started the Photo Mode trend on consoles. The Last of Us Remastered followed suit, then Infamous First Light and Driveclub is going to have it when it decides to finally work. Seems like Sony's first party AAA lineup will all include this. Middle-earth is the first 3rd party game to include this on consoles. So I suppose he was saying that they got this idea from Infamous.

He means The Last of Us Remastered, and Infamous SS had photo mode. I took tons of photos in Infamous with it. We definitely need more games to launch with Photo Mode. While playing Middle-earth, I thought it would be great to have a Photo Mode because the game looks so good and I probably could have gotten some great shots. But I beat (And got the platinum trophy) this game so I don't feel like going back to it because I have lots of other games to finish. I took a couple pictures the day it launched but it was some quick stuff, nothing super cool. Games need to launch with this mode from now on, that'd be much, much better. Oh man, I hope Bloodborne launches with this. That game is gorgeous and Photo Mode would really show it off.

@awesomeusername: Ok, cool. I don't have a PS4, so I didn't know this was already "a thing" in their exclusive games.

In any case, I think it is a great addition that is nowhere near common enough. With any luck, more and more games will include this feature.

@corevi said:

@ripelivejam said:

let me bling these photos up or else.

Yes.

I mean, if you want to get picky Forza has had a comprehensive mode since at least Horizon (the first one I played. If you mean on new consoles, then you're probably right, but still I think "renthla" saying they are ripping someone off is kind of irrelevant. Mordor is a game that, bar the nemesis system, is ripping people off, and it's reportedly great, so who cares?

@bollard: Yeh Forza has had photo mode for a while and Gran Turismo even longer but that is car porn and not really the same thing. Photo mode is awesome most of us agree so be happy Suckerpunch came up with the idea and its now spreading to more awesome games.

it is a cool feature and it has some really nice filters. its just cool to freeze the game play at any time and whoosh the camera around plus it gives a great view of what is going on, good for intense. moments . its like the best pause button ever made.

To be honest, I like photo mode for just allowing me to pause time and fly around, it always looks cool.

I need to watch the end of the forza horizon 2 quick look again.

Yep. Pretty much since Madden's replays I have always loved this feature of just being able to pause time and look around the game.

Could you imagine how cool it would be if we could Fast Forward and Rewind Shadow of Mordor in slow mo? Dayum.

So, uh, about that photo mode...

It's cut down my actual playing because I try to take a cool photo every orc fight

Gallery

Just discovered this feature when playing around with the best skin yet :P. Here is some pics I put together while killing random orcs.

Curse you toggle UI

@fredchuckdave: Lul

Here have some more toggle ui free pics. Meanwhile I hate the giant bomb image uploader... they always come out smaller and lower res than what I actually am posting.

Self Explanatory:

CARAGORES MOTHER FUCKER

New skin came out apparently, so that means more stupid pictures:

@fredchuckdave: Her expression reminds me of how in Uncharted 2 when you used the Elena or Chloe model in single player they didn't change the facial animation at all to match so they always had super ridiculous expressions.

EDIT: Uncovered photographic evidence of this peculiar phenomena.

@corevi: Her regular animations aren't bad, but facial looks pretty stupid outside of a neutral context (Chloe and Elena sort of look like gorillas in Drake form). She's also a lot shorter I think? And the Black Hand is way bigger than Talion. Obviously Talion looks dumb via photo mode as well.

Someone should make a decent photography-based game (or 'game'), now that games don't look like shit.