Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is remembered for many reasons, but perhaps best of all for its Nemesis system, an incredible mechanic for generating memorable Orc encounters. According to a former executive, the Nemesis system came about from trying to solve a different problem: secondhand sales.
In a new video, Laura Fryer — former vice president of WB Games who oversaw the publisher’s Seattle studios at the time — talked about her time with Monolith. While discussing the way trend-chasing affects the industry, Fryer mentioned that chasing trends is what “literally led to the Nemesis system.”
There’s a game menu with a diagram of a military hierarchy of named enemies, and their strengths/vulnerabilities. When you find the named enemies in the game and interact with them in some way (iirc it’s basically limited to winning/losing a fight or mind controlling them), it affects their traits and their place in the tree, and you’ll get a short cutscene where they say stuff referencing your past interactions.
They also don’t stay in one place, and can just randomly show up in a place when you’re, say, doing stealthy stuff. Suddenly assassinating a whole outpost of orcs becomes “aww shit, Feldûsh is here, and he’s immune to stealth attacks” or '“oh no Roggvir just showed up, he’s riding a warg and so are the other 4 guys he pals around with”.