Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis System has been patented by Warner and that’s why it hasn’t appeared in more games

The reason you didn’t try the Nemesis System of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War in other games is because Warner Bros. patented it.

The patent details the Nemesis System built for both games and found by Game Maker’s Toolkit and discussed in the last video you can watch below (thanks, PSU).

If you are not familiar with the Nemesis System, it basically uses memory techniques, which means that the game can remember actions taken that become part of the narrative. In turn, enemies in the game will remember what you did the more you came into contact with them.

In Middle-earth games, the named orc bosses you kill will have their skills passed on to another orc. But if you die at the hands of your enemy, that orc can rise through the ranks with new abilities and will come after you again. Orcs will also fight each other to move up the ranks.

And because it was patented, we will probably never see anything exactly the same in other games. Perhaps something similar, but not the exact system. For now, the closest we have to this is the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Mercenaries system.

As RPS points out, this is not the only system patented by a game maker. Bioware has patented its dialogue wheel and Take-Two has registered a patent related to AI navigation developed by Rockstar.