Flashback Friday: Those Middle Earth Games With the, "Nemesis," System Were Fun

I wrote about the video-game, "Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor," back in--lemme check my notes here--ah, yes, early 2015. Yes, over a decade ago we were introduced to a good game with an amazing concept. I am referring to the Nemesis System. You could run around a chunk of Middle Earth, fighting baddies who would remember you. You'd beat them up and they'd perhaps run away, only to return with some scars and a thirst for vengeance. Maybe you'd lose a fight, but instead of getting struck down they'd laugh and walk away, declaring you weren't worth slicing up. With that first game, there was a whole eheleon of Orc/Uruks/etc. fighting for power, and you could impact it all. A sequel game, "Middle Earth: Shadow of War," was released in 2017, with folks still loving the Nemesis system even if some other elements of the second game were weaker. The joke was that all the other games were going to start ripping off the Nemesis system, but nope.

How come nobody else did the Nemesis system? The reasons were threefold: Technical, financial, and legal. A lot of programming was needed to create a system like that from scratch, with tons of complex artificial intelligence. That would be pricey to create or simply pay for if the publisher at the time, Warner Bros. had decided to license the tech (they did not). Then, in 2021, the Nemesis system itself was patented and can't be copied until 2035 or so. Games can do things a bit like that system, but engage in a design too much like it and you could get sued. A, "Wonder Woman," game was apparently in the works that would've utilized something a lot like the Nemesis System, but it was canceled, and the studio behind the Middle Earth games that had moved on to make that? Well, that was shut down. The Nemesis system wasn't something cheap, easy, or generic enough to copy. It was complex, specialized, and expensive enough that Warner Bros. wanted to lock it off from anyone else. So, now it sits. Game studios tragically being shut down happens often, however, just look at the recent (quite sad) news with Bioware and Mass Effect! Why is all of this fresh in my mind, however? Well, guess what two games recently had some minor tweaks and were re-released for the Switch 2? 

Various foes with assorted feelings about you, mostly quite negative!

Yep, both, "Shadow or Mordor," and, "Shadow of War," can be purchased in the online shop and enjoyed. I picked up the first game for the release-sale price of ten bucks. It was totally worth it to dip my toes back into the Nemesis system and wonder about what could have been for games. I'm not alone, as a modder has been doing his own version for the PC iteration of, "Red Dead Redemption 2," and as he isn't some big studio or making money off this, it is all legal. Could the Nemesis sytem or something quite like return, someday? Just like franchises themselves, a good game mechanic/gimmick never stays dead. At some point the new owner of the combined Paramount, Warner Brothers Discovery AKA Skydance might decide to dust off the system for some other game or license the tech out. That, or in a chunk of years when anyone can do something like the system for a profit, they probably will. Unless humanity wipes itself out due to a nuclear war, biological outbreak, or the robots take over and kill us all, I bet the Nemesis system will return someday. Hell, maybe with the AI advances, those Orcs won't just be simulating a grudge; they'll truly hate the players behind the controller (an equally intriguing and scary thought)!