A new episodic series on the making of Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor has emerged from Monolith Productions, and right from the first episode we're going to get a great look behind the scenes of one of the year's biggest releases.

The first of the seven-part "making of" series is above, and it focuses on Monolith themselves and how they're approaching a world like Middle-Earth, rife with established lore from other sources. They cite their biggest challenge as the need to be immersed in this world, as they acknowledge that fans want to be able to get lost in the world of Middle-Earth while playing through the story Monolith has created.

Another big focus for the team is the idea of "emergent gameplay," or making sure that each player has their own unique playthrough of Shadow of Mordor. They don't want dialogue to be the same across two games, they don't want a linear experience, they want this game to be the most dynamic experience it can be.

This first episode is an interesting look into the psyche of a game developer and how they keep themselves level-headed through the development cycle, but right after we saw it all we could think about is wanting to visit that studio just to play on their indoor soccer field. Seriously, that looks awesome.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor launches Sept. 30 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

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