And according to Riot Games narrative designer Cat Manning, the terms of the patent are worryingly ambiguous. The implication is that developers working on a comparative game system would have to licence its use from WB Games, or deal with potential litigation. Unless it’s the Nemesis system, I mean, because that’s patented. Game design are inherently iterative, taking this from that game, and that from this other game, and making something unique out of those combinations. Which makes this patent feel kind of hypocritical. I actually remember attending a backstage developer presentation of the Nemesis system at Gamescom in 2013, and was super impressed with it – maybe almost even as much as the developers were.īut besides the legitimately innovative Nemesis system, the two games are more or less Assassin’s Creed: But With Orcs featuring combat mechanics copy-pasted from Rocksteady’s Batman series. But is this a bad thing for game design? Some critics think so.įirst introduced in 2014’s Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and subsequently expanded in the game’s 2017 sequel Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the procedural Nemesis system populates the game world with randomly generated NPCs who respond to player interactions with them by moving up through a sort of enemy hierarchy, improving their stats and skills and building a sort of custom personalised enmity with you over time. Having submitted multiple applications since 2015, the company’s patent has now been approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
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