Imagine playing a game and defeating a boss, only to have them return without warning and remember your past actions. Now, imagine that concept being completely personalized, leaving everyone to have unique interactions that can’t be replicated. That is the basis of the nemesis system.
It is a gameplay mechanic that was created by the developers of Monolith Productions, who implemented it into Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel game Shadow of War. These games adapted their story and world to the iconic Lord of The Rings book series, which gave way to an exciting use of the nemesis system by implementing it into the core objective of defeating and recruiting orcs. Sometimes, certain orcs will cheat death and take revenge on the player later in the game. They could also beat the player and become stronger, save the player’s life at random chance, betray them, and so on. It allowed for personalized storytelling that grabbed your attention and made the experience memorable.
So why haven’t we seen this mechanic in other games? Unfortunately, the powers that be at Warner Bros. acquired Monolith Productions back in 2004 and patented the nemesis system. Any game developers who tried to replicate the mechanic in their games were liable to get in trouble with Warner. What makes it worse is that the company has not done anything with the system since they patented it, leaving many people to get angrier that they patented it in the first place. There were rumors that the system was going to return for the Wonder Woman game, but the cancellation of the entire project erased any hope for its use. Hopefully, the patent will one day be overturned, or Warner Bros. will begin using it more for future productions at least. It is simply too cool of a concept that I can see many games utilizing to provide players with limitless stories to explore.
