The ongoing acquisition battle for Warner Bros Discovery will decide the future of the company and the massive catalog of important media and intellectual property within it. That said, with all eyes focused on what becomes of its theatrical, television, and comic book properties, it’s easy to forget Warner Bros history within the video game industry.
Warner Bros has been the parent company to several popular video game franchises, including Mortal Kombat, Injustice, Lego Batman, and the Batman Arkham games. All of these titles and the game studios associated with them will be affected by it, and with Netflix’s disinterest in the video game aspects of the company, it could very easily be tossed to the side.
However, many within the industry fear that a certain coveted video game mechanic could be permanently lost amongst all of this mess if nothing is ever done.
The Nemesis system is a popular game mechanic that has been kept hidden by Warner Bros since its debut in the 2014 Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor title. The mechanic was groundbreaking in that it creates a dynamic hierarchy of enemy non-player characters (NPCs) that can evolve according to player interactions. This led to enemy grunts that the player defeated, sometimes becoming rivals, and could even rise through the ranks to become major bosses that the player would have to fight down the line.
Many players saw the potential of this mechanic, which could revolutionize storytelling within role-playing games and deepen immersion. If the mechanic could be expanded beyond enemy NPCs to NPCs in general, unique stories could be told, like villagers inspired by player actions to become adventurers, or become bitter enemies if the player was hostile towards them.
Unfortunately, after being patented by Warner Bros, the nemesis system has not been seen in a game since. The video game industry would benefit greatly if mechanics as good as this weren’t kept behind closed doors. People need to speak out, keep these topics in conversation, and urge the leaders of these companies to make things with these features, because there is a massive market for it.
