At the beginning of the eighth console generation, plenty of gaming fans were excited of what the future held for games. Like practically every launch lineup for new consoles, there wasn't a whole lot to look forward to immediately. It was within the next year that the big next-gen games were set to release, one of which was Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. Prior to 2014, it had been years since a proper Lord of the Rings game had released. Shadow of Mordor was highly anticipated from fans, especially with its unique Nemesis system.

The Nemesis system was the source of great praise for Shadow of Mordor as a unique system of bosses/rivals that justifies and keeps players engaged with every enemy encounter. Many fans and pundits throughout the industry theorized how iterations of the Nemesis system could work in other games. Of course, Shadow of Mordor came and went, along with a direct sequel titled Shadow of War, yet not many other games were implementing a Nemesis-style system. Many figured the system's mechanics lent itself well to other titles, so where are they?

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Why The Nemesis System is Special

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Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis system is essentially a rotation of rivals that players fight and defeat throughout the game. In the context of the story, the Nemesis system is the representation of chief officers in Sauron's army. Talion, the player, is tasked with defeating (or recruiting) various Orc lieutenants and chieftains in his revenge campaign against Sauron. For every enemy that Talion kills or recruits, a new Orc can potentially take their place. Each promotion in Sauron's army is caused by the player's death, the player kills a high-ranking orc with subordinates, rival chieftains battle it out for supremacy, or other various environmental factors that cause promotion.

Video games have never shied away from justifying player deaths or progression in unique ways before. The Nemesis system validates actions by the player organically, shifting and changing with every major kill and death throughout the campaign. Every time Talion is killed, his killer is promoted in Sauron's army, teaching players not to be reckless. On the other side, every Orc lieutenant kill opens up a slot in Sauron's Army to be filled by new blood later on. Every move the player takes emphasizes the feeling that their actions are directly affecting the world around them.

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Adapting the Nemesis System Into Other Games

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The Nemesis system is compelling and potentially applicable to several other popular games/franchises, but it hasn't seen the widespread adoption many thought that it would. There have been very few games to genuinely implement a similar system to justify progression in an open world. The biggest example to come to mind is Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which does so with the legendary Mercenaries around Ancient Greece that Kassandra/Alexios can come into contact with. Like the Orcs in the Nemesis system, each mercenary has their own unique attributes that scales with the player's level.

Other than that, there really haven't been too many games to adopt a Nemesis-like system. There's definitely plenty of possible franchises that would lend themselves well to a similar system. Far Cry comes to mind, considering the series has been obsessed with villains and rivals for years. Having a persistently new threat chasing players around the open world could potentially be an interesting twist to the usual Far Cry gameplay loop. Even Grand Theft Auto could utilize something similar, either in the story mode or in multiplayer, to encourage competition between rival criminals for extra in-game perks.

Granted developing a rotating, ever-present Nemesis system in any game can't certainly be easy. Judging from the discourse surrounding the Nemesis system when Shadow of Mordor came out, it seemed like this particular mechanic would be far more popular than it currently is in open world games. At least it keeps the Nemesis system distinctly unique to Shadow of Mordor and any subsequent sequels, for the most part.

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