Shadow of War's Forthog Orc-Slayer DLC will be free

To pay respect to late Michael Forgey, a friend and colleague of the people at Monolith Productions, they decided to "immortalize" him in the world of Mordor with a specifically made DLC called "Forthog Orc-Slayer" for their upcoming game Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. Initially their plan was to offer financial support to Forgey's family by donating all the profit from the DLC sales.

But due to some complex territorial laws and situations Warner Bros. have now decided to make the DLC free for everyone and donate directly to the Forgey family (i.e. from their own pockets). Anyone who already bought the DLC will receive a full refund. Below is the provided reasoning:

"Specifically, we decided to sell the DLC worldwide and donate all profits from the DLC to the family. Although we decided to donate all profits to the family, we only planned to actively promote this donation in the U.S. (excluding certain states based on their charitable promotion laws). We hoped this approach would raise as much money as possible for the Forgey family in compliance with the law. Our decision not to promote the donation outside the U.S. (even though we intended to donate the money) caused many to question where funds from other territories were going. Answering that direct question itself could have triggered compliance obligations or put us in violation of cause marketing laws in some of the 241 territories in which the content was available."

Let's hope it turns out to be a good thing for both the fans of the game and family of the late developer.