Middle-earth: Shadow of War developer Monolith Productions reveals that development of the game is "super stressful." The developer announced the title with a trailer earlier this year, promising to build on the hit game it created with Shadow of Mordor.
In a new interview, Monolith's creative VP Michael de Plater reveals that the entire Shadow of War team is creating the game with the "assumption" that "if we fail, we're doomed." de Plater agreed that it can be "super stressful" as there are so few triple-A studios making triple-A games, developers "have to have that mentality that you're either doing something great or probably no one's going to want to give you the large sums of money it takes to try and do that again."
That doesn't sound like the best conditions to develop a game in and sounds more like a recipe for development hell if anything, but de Plater explains that "stress for us is generally a really positive thing because our whole studio is devoted to one game." This can be "really exciting and really motivating," says the developer, who notes that this was also the case with Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, as it was the "first go in this genre. If we don't succeed, no one's gonna give us another chance."
Many fans will agree that Shadow of Mordor absolutely knocked it out the park and so if the development strategy isn't broke, so to speak, then there's no need to fix it. Many will also be hoping that this leads to another great game in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor as the game also looks to be mighty ambitious. For example, Monolith has promised a massive world for players to explore, as detailed in the Shadow of War open-world trailer, and the team will be under pressure to fill it with life and to ensure that exploring isn't tedious.
The developer has also teased big improvements to the Nemesis System, which is responsible for enemy behavior and can also create characters that help players out or create enemies that mock them. It won't be easy for Monolith to add even more reason to love a feature that fans already adored, so it's very little surprise that the development team is feeling the heat. Fingers crossed that it will all pay off.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War will be available on August 22nd for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Project Scorpio.
Source: GameSpot