Warner Bros. Studio received a patent for the “Nemesis” system used in the dilogy Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and Middle-Earth: Shadow of War… The corresponding document appeared on February 3, 2021 on the official website of the US Patent Office.
According to the document, the exclusive rights to use the system will remain with the company until 2035. It included “characters, forts, social revenge and followers in computer games.” In addition, the document mentions the workings of hierarchy and interactions between NPCs, who are able to remember the actions of the player, which affects their behavior.
Warner Bros. tried to patent the system since 2015, but was regularly rejected. Most often the reason was the similarity with existing systems – for example, one of the patents belongs to Square Enix. In this case, the basis for the refusal was the descriptions used in the patent, and not the systems themselves.
The patent comes into force on February 23. After that, anyone wishing to use such a system will be forced to request a license from the WB. However, developers can still create similar systems – for example, the mercenaries from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey or the Census system in Watch Dogs Legion cannot cause legal proceedings.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was released in September 2014. The title won Game of the Year and Best Action Game, among others. The average rating for Shadow of Mordor from users on the Metacritic portal was 8 points out of 10, and from critics – 84 out of 100. The sequel to the game was released in 2017 and also received high ratings from journalists – the average score on Metacritic stood at around 80 out of 100.
–
