If there's one gameplay innovation that I
think deserves another look - it's the Nemesis System, which first appeared in the 2014 game,
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. At its most basic, it's a villain generator,
capable of populating Mordor with a handful of procedurally generated bad guys. Each one has its own name, look, gameplay
traits, and personality - which is revealed in taunting one-liners before combat. HORZA: "I wonder which of us will kill you
first…" But at its best - and especially so in the
sequel Shadow of War - it's a full on story generator, which is able to spin unique and
highly personal narratives from your relationships with these orcs. It's a pretty incredible feat of design and
engineering. We've seen story generation stuff in games
like Rimworld and Crusader Kings - but in a real time action game with blockbuster graphics? It's unheard of! It's also something I've talked about a number
of times on this channel. But I've never really dug into the specifics
of how it works. To be honest, I've always been intimidated
by the sheer complexity of the thing. That is… until now. It's about time I finally gave it a go. So… hi! I'm Mark Brown,
this is Game Maker's Toolkit, and here's how the Nemesis System
creates stories. A quick note before I start - to save time
and make things easier, I'm mostly going to talk about these two games as a single entity
- which I'll just call "Mordor". It's worth noting that Shadow of War makes
massive changes and improvements to the system, but the broad strokes do apply to both games. If I had to choose an analogy for the way
Mordor tells stories, I'd go with "improvisational theatre", where unscripted stories spontaneously
evolve as the performance goes on. And especially the rule "Yes, And…", which
is about always accepting your partner's prompt, and building on it. And that's exactly how it works in Mordor. The player does something, the game recognises
it, and builds on it. So you might run away from a battle with an
Orc captain to save your skin - and get called a coward in a future encounter.. ZÛMUG: "Not letting you run this time! I's gonna finish it!" Or you might put a spy into the enemy's ranks,
only for the the next Orc you meet to say… RÂSH: "We know you've planted a spy. Dunno who he is yet. But we'll just torture maggots until we find
him". The way this works is that the game is always
secretly cataloguing your interactions with the game, and the Orcs can then reference
this list in order to choose the most interesting line of dialogue at the start of your next
encounter. And that's really clever because it means
the way you communicate to the game - the way you make your improvisational suggestions
- is through the most basic actions of play. Things like kill, flee, injure, heal, or gather
intel. The things you're doing anyway in order to
play the game get used by the Nemesis System as a jumping off point for the narrative. But this can also go the other way, with the
Orcs giving prompts - and hopefully the player will take the bait and build on the story
themselves. Take this Olog called Ar-Karo who beat me
to a pulp, bent down, picked up my sword, and broke it. AR-KARO: "You think this hurts me? No!" I guess I'll be tracking him down. Okay, so that's the basics. But this left developer Monolith Productions
with a problem - in a game that's all about death and violence, how do you make these
stories last longer than a single encounter? You can't have improv if your partner is dead,
after all. The solution was to find ways for an encounter
to end that don't involve death. So, for one, the player is always able to
run away from a battle - and is often encouraged to do so because it's difficult to recover
health in the middle of combat. Some Orcs also retreat when their life is
in danger. Also, right at the moment of death, it's possible
for the encounter to go a very different way. PRÂK: "I can't go down like this. I won't go down like this!" A downed Orc might defy death and have a tricky
escape. Or if the player is about to die, the Orc
might decide to just humiliate them and walk away. Take Maku: a wiry little archer who keeps
downing me with his poisonous arrows, but always stops short of finishing the job. MAKU: "Get up man-filth. I want a victory, not a mercy killing". MAKU: "It would be too easy to kill you like
this." MAKU: "Come on! Show me some 'Pride of Gondor' or
whatever you men are always going on about." But even if Talion does actually die, that's
not the end. In almost every game, the player's death is
a non-canonical error that gets erased when you rewind to a previous save point. It's rare to find games where the player's
demise is actually weaved into the narrative in an interesting way. But in Mordor, protagonist Talion is a gravewalker:
a man stuck between life and death, which gives him the power to endlessly come back
to life: like someone re-spawning in a multiplayer match. And this allows for a key narrative trope:
revenge. AR-KARO: "I know why you want kill me!
Revenge! Revenge for sword!
Hahaha!" Oof. Well.
He won't be a problem anymore. Monolith says it was inspired by the Burnout
games, where you can get wrecked by rival racers - and then you're dropped straight
back onto the track so you can hunt down that car and enact some sweet justice. It's only because crashing is not considered
a failure in Burnout that this sort of story can happen. The studio was also inspired by the killcam
in Call of Duty games, where you get to see the person who just killed you, and can then
respawn into the map and hunt them down. (In fact, a lot of Mordor's design was about
trying to replicate multiplayer relatedness with computer-controlled characters). And it's not just Talion who can respawn. Every enemy you slay has a small chance to
cheat death and reappear later in the game. Perhaps with visible injures, scars, and prosthetics,
which is another chance for the game to reflect the player's actions back on them. Like, for example… maybe I was being a bit
hasty when I said Ar-Karo the sword breaker wouldn't be a problem. Because half an hour later, look who showed
up in the middle of a fight. AR-KARO: "I should thank you. Whatever magics you used when you took my
head will not allow me to die! Getting killed by you was the best thing that
ever happened to me". Gulp. Put all of this together, plus some other
possible outcomes that I'll speak about later, and we can see that there's many ways for
the relationship between Talion and an Orc to go forward - from humiliation to fleeing
to cheating death. And so whatever way the encounter ends, every
time you meet this Orc again the process repeats - but now with a memory of your previous run-ins
to reference and build the story further. Something else happens when an enemy kills
you: they level up, they gain new strengths and shed old weaknesses, they get emboldened,
and they often challenge a bigger orc for their position. You see, it would get boring if you just kept
meeting the same Orcs again and again without any change or growth in the relationship. So the Nemesis System needs some kind of framework
for these stories to grow on: and in Mordor, Monolith used one that's familiar and easily
understandable to anyone who's worked in a job or, uh, been in a prison gang: the hierarchy. In Shadow of War, every Orc exists in a top-down
organisation of Overlord, a bunch of Warchiefs, the captains, and the soldiers - who are just
typical, disposable NPC enemies. Though, if they kill you they have every chance
of getting promoted to captain themselves. Killing Talion can make the enemy rise up
through the ranks. But if you shame a Warchief, they'll get demoted
back down to captain. And it's not all about Talion: Orcs are given
randomly generated missions that automatically resolve after a certain amount of time and
can lead to promotion, demotion, and death - causing the balance of power to organically
shift as you play. So if Talion's immortal nature lends itself
to stories of vengeance, the hierarchical framework leads to different story tropes:
such as fall from grace and rags to riches. Like, in my game, how Maku the humiliating
Orc captain decided to finally finish the job - and use his newfound status to overthrow
the overlord for top position. Which is quite the move up - that's like me
getting a million subscribers and then submitting my resume to become the CEO of YouTube. But it also means that Maku is now absolutely
untouchable unless I lead a full on assault of his heavily guarded fortress. The Orcs can also have other relationships,
like a captain being a bodyguard to a warchief. Or one Orc being a devoted blood brother to
another. BOLG: "I won't see my blood brother slain
by such a useless little tark!" And later in the game, you get a chance to
make your own relationships by recruiting Orcs onto your side of the war. So, after Maku became Overlord, I had an idea. No matter how many times I killed Ar-Karo:
The Stitch, he kept coming back. This time, with a massive iron helmet holding
his head together. AR-KARO "Is that surprise I see on your face? Did you really think you'd killed me? Don't make me laugh, it may tear my stitches!" And it was at this point that I realised that
me and The Stitch have more in common than I first thought: we're two immortal souls,
trapped in an endless battle of death and respawning. And so if I'm going to build an army to take
down Maku the humiliator, perhaps we should actually work together. AR-KARO: "I swear allegiance to you!" Now, I'll admit that the relationship between
Talion and his followers isn't quite as well defined as Talion and his rivals - it is,
after all, called the Nemesis System. So, a recruited captain will effectively leave
the map and may have very little interaction with Talion from that point onwards. It can be as much of an end point as the Orc's
death. But there are some interesting possibilities. A recruit may decide to betray you and return
to the enemy's side. You might install a spy in the enemy's ranks,
only for him to be found out and executed. And a favoured follower might show up in a
clutch moment to save you from certain death. AR-KARO: "Death cannot take you today! Just as it cannot take me." Thanks buddy! Whatever the case, these different relationships
help flesh out stories because they force the narrative to grow beyond simple one-on-one
tales between Talion and a single Orc. Instead, it creates a weaving matrix of different
relationships and dependencies that can lead to more exciting stories. So, hopefully, you can now see why I make
the link between Mordor and improv. In most video game stories, the narrative
is entirely predetermined. Even those games with branching paths and
multiple endings are all plotted out ahead of time - like a choose your own adventure
book. The player then navigates their way through
this scripted story. But in Mordor, the story evolves unpredictably
- because its entirely based on your interactions with these Orcs. It's constructed at runtime, encounter by
encounter, using your interactions as narrative brickwork. Systems like cheating death and humiliation
allow the stories to be longer. The hierarchy allows the cast of characters
to grow and change. And relationships between the different Orcs
creates a web of interlocking characters. But even though we've now got a pretty solid
system that allows for stories to happen - how does Monolith make sure that those stories
are actually any good? First, it's important that you can actually
remember and distinguish between these different Orcs. You'll encounter around 100 captains over
the course of a game, and so it's vitally important that the player is able to keep
track of their relationships with the key players. An Orc might remember you, but you don't always
remember them. To make this work, the Orcs need to have really
strong personalities. They need to be visually interesting and have
unique traits, like the singer. GHÛRA: "I sing this song with all my breath. Take heed! For this interlude ends with your death". Or the poet. ZUKA: "Your fate just went from bad to worse. You face an Orc, who speaks in verse". Or the obsessed. ZUKA: "I don't think I've ever seen such a
beautiful corpse. This is a corpse you could love! And love. And love." These Orcs reference their unique trait constantly,
to keep it memorable. So you might not remember his name, but you
will remember "that guy who keeps talking about branding". And to keep it consistent, the game defines
the Orc's identity first and then makes everything else support that - such as the weapon it
uses, the outfit it wears, the choices it makes in combat, and even its mannerisms - like
this god damn singing Orc who constantly says… GHÛRA: "Let's siiiiing". Because while Mordor is highly systemic and
makes significant use of procedural generation, there's still a lot of carefully handcrafted
content in there which helps certain Orcs become highly memorable characters. The Stitch, after all, is just a handcrafted
character who may appear when an Olog cheats death. But, The Stitch could be a captain, a warchief,
a spy, a follower, or any other role. There are simply hundreds of voice lines for
each Orc, to account for every eventuality. Second, the game needs to create strong, emotional
connections to these Orcs. They're not just characters - they're rivals
and nemeses. This connection is usually forged when you
die: the kill animations are aggressive and painful. The orc insults you with taunts after your
death. And we see the orc celebrating your demise
and being rewarded with a promotion. They may even change their name to denote
the way they murdered you. If this isn't enough, you're encouraged to
get revenge for gameplay purposes because killing an Orc who murdered you leads to way
better loot. Now, these stories can be filled with really
cool moments. Things like an Orc cheating death, repeatedly
humiliating you, betraying your trust, or becoming a deranged, babbling weirdo. These can be really powerful bits of narrative…
but only when they're rare occurrences. If it happens over and over it becomes rote,
predictable, and just another gameplay mechanic. So these events are designed to be uncommon. According to Monolith, in a typical playthrough
of Shadow of War the vast majority of Orcs will never cheat death, meaning that these
truly nemesis style relationships feel rare and memorable. To make this happen - well, almost everything
in Mordor has a random chance to occur. If you're downed, there's an invisible die
roll to see if a follower Orc will save your life. And, simply put: all of the most surprising
interactions are given an incredibly low chance of ever happening. And going further, some events, like certain
transformations, can only happen once and then are locked from ever happening again
in that playthrough - to ensure that those moments are truly surprising. Ideally, we want these rare occurrences to
happen to the orcs we actually know and remember. So you need to know about a secret statistic
that every Orc carries with them - the player interaction score, which ticks up every time
you rencounter the same Orc. The higher the PIS, the more likely that the
Orc will cheat death, survive in battles with other orcs, and more. And so in play, it means that the orcs you
know the best - the ones who have killed you multiple times, or have shown up again and
again - are the ones most likely to stick around, and to have the key roles in the story
going forward. Of course, it wouldn't be good if an orc cheated
death but spawned in some obscure part of the map and you never saw them again. So to make sure those cast members stay relevant,
Monolith cheats with how Orcs spawn and will allow a key rival or nemesis to teleport in
at the most inopportune moment. Orcs can even travel between the different
regions in rare circumstances, so characters you had a strong relationship with in one
part of the game will come back in another. There are even more secret stats behind the
scenes to help drive drama and bring balance to stories. For example, if you just kill or recruit every
Orc you encounter, it's likely that your story is getting a bit one note. So design director Bob Roberts says "That's
a knob we can turn. If you're doing too well, maybe somebody should
piss you off and betray you and give you a revenge target to go after." Though - I'm not sure how aggressive this
balancing is. There were times when I had to manually increase
the difficulty level because the game was just too easy, and my stories were becoming
stagnant. And finally, Monolith knows when to step back. Ultimately, much of the narrative in Mordor
takes place in the player's head, as they make connections, infer relationships, and
generate histories that may not actually be there. For example, this Orc appears and says he
wants to get vengeance for me killing his blood brother… STAKÛGA: "You gotta be careful in Mordor,
haven't ya? You never know who's got a big brother, keen
for revenge." …but notably stops short of saying who that
brother actually is. This allows me to fill in who would be the
most interesting candidate for a revenge narrative. The Orcs only have short stabs of dialogue,
after all - not massive plot-driving cutscenes. But these core anchors are enough for the
player to fill in the blanks. It's human nature to find patterns and build
narratives from disparate events, so why not just leave some of the heavy lifting to the
player's brain? So, put all of this together and you get some
pretty amazing stories. Like, the random Olog who broke my sword,
and got promoted to captain. Only for me to hunt him down and chop him
to bits. He then came back to life as The Stitch: an
unstoppable patchwork predator who just wouldn't stay dead. But with the humiliating Maku now locked up
safe in his fortress, this encouraged me to recruit The Stitch into my army, and make
him my bodyguard. We want on adventures together. I healed him when he nearly died, and he saved
my life when I was close to death. And when I built my army, installed my spies,
stormed the fortress and finally killed Maku, you can be sure who I installed as the new
leader. Ar-Karo: The Stitch. Death-defying breaker of swords. Overlord for life. If there's one question people often ask of
the Nemesis System, it's: 'why haven't we seen it in other games'? Well, for one thing, the developers at Monolith
actually, and annoyingly, have a patent for the system - meaning that other studios may
be scared to use a similar system and face legal action. They don't want to end up like, say, The Simpsons:
Road Rage which copied Crazy Taxi's legally protected gameplay, leading to a court battle
between Sega and Fox Interactive. Mordor publisher Warner Bros., however, should
be free to use the system and there have been rumours of it showing up in future Batman
and Harry Potter games - but we haven't seen anything concrete yet. That being said, we have seen some Nemesis-like
mechanics in other games, such as the Mercenary system in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and the
Play as Anyone mechanic in Watch Dogs: Legion. But because these systems only have a surface
level take on the system - without the massive structural overhaul or the focus on making
more meaningful stories emerge, these things just can't touch Mordor when it comes to generating
narratives. But one big reason for the Nemesis System
losing popularity might be that while Shadow of War is an incredible next generation step
in procedurally generated stories… the only thing anyone was talking about upon release
was the slimy microtransactions, lootboxes, overinflated endgame, and other trappings
of nauseating live service game design. The franchise's good name was tarnished, and
the developer's hard work was largely ignored. But I really hope this doesn't mean the end
for the Nemesis System. As it stands, I think the system is pretty
amazing. Shadow of War is a largely bog-standard open
worlder with Arkham Knight's combat system glued onto it - but it's elevated to something
incredibly special thanks to this system. A system that is able to make stories that
are meaningful, memorable, and - most critically of all - deeply personal to every individual
player. But there's also so much room for this system
to grow - and so I hope we see it developed even further in future games. Whether that's another Middle-Earth adventure
with even more complex relationships with the Orcs - or something else entirely. But for now - I reckon you should give the
game another shot. All of the microtransactions have been removed
and if you play on Nemesis difficulty (and pretend the game ends before the enormous
epilogue), I think you'll have a good time. AR-KARO: "Now to end this. And by this I mean you!" Hey!
It's indie game recommendation time. I think we need a change of pace after all
that killing. So this is Alba: A Wildlife Adventure which is an
absurdly cute game about doing good deeds in a tiny open world. My favourite mechanic is the photo app, which
tasks you with snapping pics of the island's many unique animals. It's an adorable and relaxing adventure, out
now on Steam and Apple Arcade.
It is a shame we don't see more of this kind of thing since a Nemesis system would fit spectacularly into other settings. A sci-fi space adventure with a cast of colorful aliens. A western. Caribbean pirates would be a fun one, since your newly-made allies could join your pirate crew. Japan in either the feudal era or in near-modern day. Goodness knows a Nemesis system in a Yakuza game would be a riot.
I was a QA tester on Shadow of War, so I have a couple of thoughts.
One big reason we don't see other games try to do Nemesis-style systems is that it's just a fuck-ton of work to make. There's a lot of procedural stuff, but it's mostly putting together disparate bits of hand-authored content. Every single orc needs a novel's worth of dialogue to cover every possible interaction they can have.
Second, I was still at Monolith when they started work on their next project. NDAs are a thing, so all I can say is that it's pretty cool, and I look forward to seeing what it's turned into since I left.
Lastly, the prevailing attitude around the office was that the MTX were stupid and terrible, but that decision was above our pay grades. We did try to make them as unobtrusive as the suits would let us get away with.
My problem with the Nemesis System isn't actually anything to do with the system itself, but rather the game's combat. It's not just that it's too easy, though it is that, it's that the combat is designed to handle fighting large groups of easily disposable enemies, and therefore it's not very good at generating interesting fights against specific individual orcs. I don't remember a single orc in either game who was interesting to fight against. Some were more difficult, sure, but it was by way of them being very tanky or just being arbitrarily immune to parts of the combat system.
A different combat system, where the fighting style of each orc could be meaningfully different, where it might be possible to develop a sense of "oh no, I find it difficult to counter this orc's specific moveset" would go a long way to making the Nemesis System a worthwhile part of the game. As it is, when I played the games, I rarely died and when I did, it felt more like a fumble on my part than actually being outclassed by my opponent.
I really wish that AC: Odyssey did more with its mercenary system. It’s the closest thing to another nemesis system, but despite its importance to that game there are no personalities and only a few variations on how they fight - and no way to find their weaknesses or meet recurring mercenaries.
Though I haven’t played Valhalla, so it might be different there.
Leave it to GMTK to bring these games back on my radar. Glad to have had Shadow of War be a PS+ freebie recently; looks like I might have gotten the nudge I needed to fire it up!
Surprised we don't see roguelite games use this more. Star Renegades is the only one I know, and it... Doesn't do it very well, it's more-or-less irrelevant.
I've always avoided these games because I don't like the Arkham/early AC combat style, but I'm very interested after watching this video. Should I play Shadow of Mordor or can I jump right into Shadow of War? Also are the SoW DLCs worth it? I have the game on Game Pass, but I don't think it's the definitive edition.
I played the game, it's fun. I was just happy to see another "Hi I'm Mark Brown" video. Love that guy.
I liked the system, but it relies really heavily on deliberately dying to a certain enemy to make them a definite 'rival'. You're just too lethal/good at controlling people to have a long term enemy otherwise.