Folks on the internet have just found out that the Nemesis system used in Middle-earth: Shadow of War and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was patented by publisher WB Games back in 2016.
An article published by PlayStation Universe was picked up by ResetEra, leading to an intense debate about the patent. While some folks claimed that they’ve known about the patent, many evidently missed this one, including a lead developer at Obsidian Entertainment, who took issue with it. Josh Sawyer, whose tweets seem to have prompted PSU’s article, wrote:
Somehow I missed that WB patented the Nemesis system. Lmao what a load of shit. If you take someone’s design and make a better version of it, you should be given a trophy and a triumph through the streets and the people who made the previous version should applaud you and say, ‘wow that was really cool.’ Like I didn’t want to before but this actually makes me want to make a Nemesis variant because this is so stupid. If I ever try to legally protect a gameplay mechanic I hope I am executed via the Persian boats!
The patent was authored by Monolith Productions’ developers. The studio is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.
The Nemesis system is described as a special method by which “Players may share power centers, character hierarchies, non-player characters, and related quests involving the shared objects with other players playing separate and unrelated game instances over a computer network, with the outcome of the quests reflected in different the games.”
