They patent this system then did absolutely nothing with it. 7 years since it was last used is actually shocking

A pirate game with the nemesis system would be revolutionary

"Its MY IP to sit around and do nothing with."

Patents should expire 5-15 years after being filed, depending on the field. They should also only ever be owned by individuals, not abstract entities. The point is to give inventors a chance to monetize their innovation, not for garbage companies to sit on like a senile dragon riding a dildo.

Patents to game mechanics could KILL THE INDUSTRY. Imagine if Bethesda patented side quests or if Activision patented First Person Perspective.

Kinda wish loot boxes were patented

The nemesis system is amazing. Shadow of Mordor/War are some of my favourite games because of the combat and crazy shenanigans that can happen because of the Nemesis system. It makes me so mad they put a patent on it and haven't used it in 7 years now. So many games would benefit amazingly from such a system.

Congrats to lawyer team who could manage to copyright an abstract concept.

The fact that companies can even patent game mechanics is a very dangerous precedent that has scary implications for the future of the game industry.

There is a mod that adds the Nemesis System into Skyrim, and it is awesome... died 4 times to the same Mudcrab, that thing got stronger and stronger... had to play for a few hours and level up to slay that legendary thing.

mad max with nemesis system can work.

I'm actually in the middle of replaying the middle earth games, just started War and even after 4 playthroughs I'm still finding new unique orcs I never saw before. Its a revolutionary system, that can be expanded beyond mass yet is stuck in two games. Two really good games, but a system held shackles by greed and not even being used while in purgatory.

There should be a requirement for use with corporate patents. You HAVE to use the thing you patented in a certain time frame or you loose the patent, because your just sitting on it to stop other people from using it.

I think the concept makes more sense with Talion who’s part wraith. With Batman if he loses to a criminal wouldn’t he just die?

This is why I hate patents because they literally serve nothing but so withhold innovation for extremely short term profits

It's like a dog that found a bone and chewed on it for a few minutes before he realized he didn't want it. Then, when he sees another dog going near, he decides they can't have it.

If a patent application if rejected MULTIPLE times. You should not be able to apply for a patent on the subject again. Period.

The problem with the nemesis system is that the better you are at games: The less you end up interacting with it. I never got a nemesis, because I consistently killed everyone. A couple of them would come back to life to take revenge, but I'd always just kill em on the first try... I don't know if they made it adapt to that in the sequel, since I never played it, but it's one of the reasons I don't really remember this game as much as a lot of people seem to.

This is how business works now. If you have something unique that can be patented, you NEVER license it out - you sit on that gold and use it in one (1) project, then wait for someone to infringe on your copyright. Then you call the lawyer squad. Profit.

Man, the Nemesis system is such a genius design, especially when combined with something like Assassin's Creed Odyssey mercenary system...imagine Dragon's Dogma 2, you go around the world, killing those other groups of 4 adventurers that you see on the road, and one of them shoots a flare and BAM now you're wanted by every other group, who is now on their way to you...and even if you kill them all, 2 hours later, while you're miles away, killing goblins, you get ambushed by a raid group of adventurers lead by an elite one who demands justice for his sister's murder or something... Edit: lol, I forgot to add that they get stronger by capturing/killing your pawns.

They should not have been able to PATENT this at all. Characters with a memory (persistent game state) and that effect their behavior is NOT a new idea and should not have been granted a patent. Do they want to patent game saves now, too? Patent damaging a boss and saving that you damaged them? WTF?!?!

The real tragedy is WB. I would love a great Wonder Woman game, but I have no faith in it.

Warframe did try to use a system like this a few years back. It introduced special enemy types called the "Kuva Liches" and "Sisters of Parvos", for two of the main enemy factions respectively, who have differing abilities and special upgraded weapons with elemental properties depending on what Warframe you used to kill them with. They get stronger as you try and fail to defeat them and, when you do finally manage to take them down for good, give you the option of killing them off to take their weapon for yourself or sparing them to turn them into an ally that can randomly show up to help you in missions. It's not perfect or all that deep from an emergent storytelling perspective, but it's the closest thing I have seen anyone get to replicating the Nemesis System without Warner Brothers saying anything about it.

Would have been great in a Watch_Dogs espionage type game with grudge hackers and double agents, a Wild West Outlaw and Bounty Hunter game, A Sci-Fi version like a Star Wars Bounty Guild vs. Syndicates, and Angels vs. Demons apocalyptic warfare game... the closest thing I recall was Warframe putting grudge enemies you could eventually kill for a weapon or recruit as a summon.

Star Wars would be perfect for a Nemesis system. So many times Jedi and Sith fight without actually killing each other. Imagine a game where you start at a Jedi padawan or Sith apprentice and by the end of the game the, some of Sith lords you're fighting are the guys you've been fighting throughout the story.

Patenting game mechanics is blatantly corrupt. I have no idea how this could have been approved.

Flak the Wicked, that bastard was the bane of my existence. Encountered him close to the start of the game and by the time I was just about to finish it we had fought so many times that he was horribly scared and was resistant to literally almost everything. Dude was a nearly invincible fortress even though he was actually one of the smaller slimmer type orcs. The ONLY way to bring him down was using his fear of wargs against him but of course a lot of the times I encountered him there were non nearby so it was either die or run and fight another day. The amount of dopamine I got from finally killing him was unlike anything else I've ever experienced in a video game before. god those games were so good

This would have been an awesome Batman game

Imagine a Pirate game with the Nemesis system, where you could build your legacy and have countless other pirates that rise to be deadly sea demons along side you, that would have been super cool

Unbelievable timing, just finished your Shadow of War video from last year cause I was pondering if I should give it another try. And you drop this exactly while I am sitting here and reminiscing about the nemesis system. How much I loved it in Shadow of Mordor. How impactful it was and how to this day I remember this a-hole orc Grisha who kept coming back and driving me crazy! Curse him and WB for keeping this locked away from us. This can make such an amazing gaming experience

They don’t like it cuz it’s harder to monetize then live service😂

Imagine if a movie studio had patented the The Cavalry Arrives trope, thus preventing things like the ride of the Rohirrim or the portal scene from Endgame.

I played the hell out of shadow of war. Such an underrated gem

The reason it worked though in SOM was because your character was undead and you didn't need to save scum. A game with a mortal character isn't going to work as well as there needs to be a realistic death mechanic. I imagine this is the reason the system isn't used. People do not want to be defeated and having defeat as a core gameplay loop isn't going to work in most situations. It would work in MMOS though where there are unimmersive death systems always present

Assassins creed as nipped at the edge of the system, and it would be great if they could just do it fully.

I looked at the Nemesis System patent and it is fairly specific, so implementing that exact thing into a game is asking for trouble. However, there have been several games that use proceedural generation and developing social links and rivalries between players and NPCs in alternative ways. Ubisoft's done it at least twice, including in your recruiting apparatus in Watch Dogs Legion.

Nemesis is one of my favorite game systems and it sucks how WB gatekeep it. Even under WB it has a lot of potential for great games. Like Mad Max with Nemesis system would be so freking cool.

I entirely forgot there had been loot boxes. I think other than the ones occasionally earned for free my brothers and I typically just went to the gladiator pit and ran it until someone hit max level. It often ended up with some good entertainment AND some pretty sweet champions. Hell I lost a lot of legendaries to that pit.

The Shadow games got to be the biggest and funniest case of irony in the gaming industry. There’s not a single original bone in these games and yet the one thing that was different they patented. Fucking hilarious.

The Nemesis system, especially in SoW is awesome. I still regularly go back and play it ans every time some interaction or orc will surprise me. A particular highlight being a long time back I super shamed a high level Olog and it demented him and lead to him only being able to make this hilarious "YEEEE-YEE--YEEEE" noise rather than be able to speak. Still kills me when I remember it. Awesome system

A batman game with the nemisis system would of been dope. WARNER BROTHERS ARE HOLDING THEIR SELF BACK TRYNNA CHASE TRAINS THAT LEFT A LONG AHH TIME AGO

I remember GRINDING by leveling up my orcs to get through those 10 phases of tower defense and retakes to get the final ending. Losing orcs in the process to RNG. It was miserable. But I can honestly say that in 2017, I was among less than a percentage of players who seen the real ending without spending a dime. I believe at the time only like .7 or .8 percent of players even got the real ending.

I still want a warhammer 40k where you start as an ork boy fresh out of the ground and you work your way up to war boss to lead a waagh against the imperium. You could have other orks, humans, nids, etc as enemies that come back on different planets using the nemesis system until you eventually have your Crew assembled to attack terra.

Imagine a Harry Potter game where your classmates use the nemesis system. Think Harry Potter, Bully, and the nemesis system all mixed together.

I've been observing the discussion around ''what did we miss with this game?'' and i'm quite sure the if the game had been published, we would now be discussing ''What do we do with 2 different batman franchises, this is just a mediocre clone from Arkham series. They actually had plans to do LOTR-game with these kinda game mechanics! I'd give me soul to see that!''. And I'd be posting this same message reversed.

Great timing on this video. I finally finished Shadow of Mordor yesterday. I tried and failed to play it years ago and never got far. I don't know why I suddenly found it much easier this time. I finished it in about a week. The nemesis system originally bothered me a lot, but I think I had bad RNG and suddenly had a lot of beefy enemies I couldn't defeat. This time I had a lot of fun, especially when I got the power to brand orcs and use the system to my advantage. There was only one orc who killed me throughout the game and I can't remember his name, something Marauder. He was immune to range damage, a combat master, he had a hatred of fire so setting him on fire only made him madder, and his only vulnerability was to stealth attacks which I couldn't easily do since he was always in a group. But once I had the power to brand and command orcs I thought I'd try again. I was losing until I started mind controlling other orcs around him and eventually I had enough of an army on my side that he was killed when I wasn't looking. Not really related to the nemesis system, but in the beast hunter DLC I was losing to the final warchief but suddenly a wretched graug happened upon the fight and took care of him for me. That was hilarious.

Nemesis systems had so much potential could you imagine it used in GTA game or other open world game

That Shadow Of War music in the background 😢 Making me a little nostalgic

I feel like the idea behind Warframe's Kuva Liches was similar to the Nemesis system but definitely not as wide reaching.

I think the Nemesis system makes a lot of sense for any superhero game. Reminds me of Project Awakened by Phosphor.

Imagine if the nemesis system was arkham knight's big step forward in the formula instead of the batmobile

As a big Tolkien fan I'm more glad we got Shadow of Mordor over Batman game. As for the Nemesis system, I can only imagine what kind of games some passionate studios would have made, if WB wasn't such an dipshit and patented this game mechanic.

Imagine a nemesis system working alongside with actual IA's, like they develop personality in real time, just depending on the situations and memories

Thank you! I've been complaining about this for years!

I think I read recently that WB sold their LotR license to Embracer, so we will never see a third Middle Earth game. Hopefully Wonder Woman will be as good if not better than Shadow of War, the Nemesis System while amazing can also be easy to mess up. I've played the game 3 times now with minimal bugs thankfully but watch someone like Tears of Grace (/Disgrace Livestreams) and boy does that man see the game in it's most broken state.

Imagine if the nemesis system was in Elden Ring. Absolutely Phenomenal!

This my friend is the type of content I expect from you my brother!

We love and appreciate you Luke cant wait to see you hit the big Mil

I beat the end game when the game came out and it only took me 8 hours. The problem was it was a never ending spam of orcs that came in big groups so it was one intro after another. And don't get me started on the annoying skill swapping to exploit weaknesses to kill them faster. It was terrible but it definitely wasn't 70-150 hours.

The nemesis fits in a ton of games idk why it’s not used more

You know what's the sad part about patents it's that by the time it finally expires most people and more importantly most companies would have completely forgotten about it/don't care about it anymore

I think AI being introduced into NPCs is going to achieve something similar. Yeah they won't be ranking up and stuff, but diverse personalities and remember previous encounters is definitely within possibility. And that is the core of what made it interesting imo

Lord of the Rings is such a painfully underused IP. I really hope the success of Hogwarts Legacy has convinced WB to make a Middle Earth game.

Really good video Luke! Love your content.

The most up my alley video you’ve ever made when I’m scrolling for something to listen to

I love Shadow of War with all my heart! Dropped around 150 hours at launch in the span of a couple of months and have been back plenty of times as well. The day the patent dropped my heart shattered. The nemesis system is such a cool concept

Ahhh missed it. Congrats on 500k 🎉

As always I'm always amazed at your choice of background music....I Love it

I'm more shocked that a company can "patent" this concept in the first place. So they now "own" the idea of having enemies join you or switch sides, hold grudges and act on their own, that's what I would have thought would become a basic evolution of enemy ai in ALL games in general, weird.

Two things: Tesla and their patents is less to do with 'for the good of mankind' but more to do with mitigating risk, by trying to generate an electrical standard for car charger sockets and battery systems. EM did not care about opening up EV tech for other companies, because he already knew that ALL car manufacturers have got EV's and he had nothing new to add to the party. The Nemesis Patent is, in my professional opinion, one of the most far-sweeping and generalised patents ever issued for the video games industry and should be stomped out, should it ever go to court.

Fish Trap Lake! Love that place. We used to vacation there and loved it. Keep up the great work!

I hope to god the Nemisis doesnt come to MK. The gameplay of MK isnt vast enough. There would be no difference between a tower and Nemisis. It would be a waste

Patents for video game mechanics should not be legal. We start allowing that now after decades of innovation and investment went into building everything that provided a foundation for the Nemesis system to even work. I’m talking about the very basics, 3D modeling and physics, combat, a “hit box” itself, these were all originally invented by someone but we didn’t patent them. It’s too late to allow patents for obscure mechanics in video games when there is very little originality to any of them by necessity. The patent process also doesn’t allow competitors to challenge the patent. It relies on the ignorance of a legal process that wasn’t built for software, it was created for real tangible items and mechanical processes.

thanks for sharing this, still dope to see.

as i’m reading the silmarillion right now, while also doing a shire to mordor running challenge (660mi), i love the LOTR. shadow of mordor on my macbook pro in 2016 during class and lunch breaks was a blast. i loved the game. we need more of them :(((

It would be so cool if this system were used to develop an open-world Batman game based on the Snyderverse.

As someone who played shadow of war day one. Let me just tell others who was not there at the time. You grind and do all the main and side quests of the game and of course you have lets say about 10 hours where you are just collecting and messing around in the world. When you get to act 4 of the game ( the shadow wars) you and im not joking will be so underpowered that you will keep losing your army time after time and then even if you manage to win one you will have more sieges pop up. The game at that point is forcing you to use the loot boxes just to get orcs that are high level enough because the orcs you gathered through the game just arent up to it.

Bro, my enemy in this game was what I can describe as an 'actual nemesis'. He had description in only in strength and rage, he had nothing in weakness and fear.

Imagine a fantasy action RPG with the Nemesis System and city building as well as RTS elements present in Manor Lords. You grind in order to make your character not only stronger, but also to become more influential. At some point in the game, the King or Emperor recognizes you and believes you have the potential, so he gives you a piece of land you either manage yourself or at the very least, hire someone else to do it for you. If you choose the former, you will be given the chance to spend some time building your own city and your own army. This is where the features in Manor Lords comes in. In addition to that, you also do not necessarily have to focus all of your attention towards the needs and/or improvements of your city. The kingdom or empire will send a representative that will aid you while you're out in the wild doing whatever. The rep will notify you of anything that requires your attention, like if your city is about to get raided, winter is coming, a storm is coming, the funds you provided are running low, etc. However, you becoming a lord, does not sit well with other characters that also wanted the King or Emperor's attention. This is where the Nemesis System comes in. Some of your rivals will send assassins to eliminate you and if they succeeded, their employer will either acquire your land, destroy it, or let the assassin that dealt the killing blow own it. The others might want to do it personally, and the same possible outcomes can also happen if they succeed. If indeed you get killed, you'll be reincarnated, and will have to start all over again, unless you earned enough points to gain divine favor. The points mentioned is similar to the Paragon and Renegade System present in Mass Effect. Choosing to do good things will earn you a favor from the benevolent gods, doing otherwise, will earn you a favor from the malevolent ones. If you want the favor of reincarnation with all of your stats, powers, and abilities, intact (excluding influence), the benevolent gods could give it to you if you earned 200 points. If you choose to go with the malevolent ones, they could give it to you for 100, but once you reincarnated, they'll force a crazy quest on you that might get you killed again or ruin your reputation, so much so that the same King or Emperor might order your execution. Since you lost the King or Emperor's trust, you might want to build your own city or kingdom and army, in a completely different way. You can also ignore the city building aspect altogether and just continue adventuring but the Nemesis System will still be active. Any enemy you encounter, lord or not, will still have the opportunity to become even more powerful, influential, etc.

Favorite gaming KZfaqr!!!

Pisses me off that they were aboe to successfully patent a f'Ing gameplay mechanic in the first place and then haven't done shit with it since and of all the games they plan to implement with it...Wonder Woman.

I remember keeping track of several indie projects that went up in smoke when this patent went through. Lots of groups weren't willing to come close to the game mechanic due to the stank of lawyers chomping at the bit by WB.

What a waste is right

The loot boxes are totally optional, unlike games like Overwatch, and many other Blizzard or Warner games. During my playthrough in Shadow of War I didn't actually use them till the end when I needed better gear for the end fight. And you can even get them for free just by completing in-game challenges like the Vendetta challenges.

Hey! I just wanted to chime in with my personal experience of Shadow of War at launch. I can't remember exactly how long the original Shadow Wars took me but it was DEFINITELY not seventy plus hours. Imo, anybody who took that long had a severe blunder of strategy Sure, you *could* grind up your fortress until it's a reasonable level to take the attack, but that would take forever. (Hence the extremely long playtimes mentioned.) By endgame you should've been at the level cap which means you could dominate any enemy captains that attacked which feels like the strategy you were supposed to adopt. It seems like it was meant as a simple way of catching your fortresses up to level without making the player grind longer hours to achieve that. Sure, sometimes you'd lose a fortress and have to retake it but that would come with little consequences other than maybe a few lower level orcs you had around before dying. The loot boxes were never necessary in my playthrough and I made a point to never spend a dime on them. Though, that was pretty easy since at the time and still looking back on it they were laughably useless. Why would you spend money to not play the game you bought? Especially when there's minimal grind if you don't play like losing a fortress is the end of the world. Seemed/s pretty silly to me

Nemesis System would only truly be appreciated and reach full potential in an RPG genre, imagine Fallout New Vegas esque game with Nemesis System. That would be HUGE!

I just started replaying the Middle Earth games. On the first one now. They still hold up for a good time. Not GREAT, but still so solid.

Oh Luke man, this news just BREAKS my heart WHY ARE THEY JUST SITTING ON THE NEMESIS SYSTEM

*Best system I've ever encountered on a game, hands down.* Because of it, Shadow of Mordor/War were two of the best games I've ever played in my entire life.

Imagine a Pokémon game with the Nemesis system. You beat random people on routes, they become your rivals and kinda travel around, annoying you for a battle at inopportune times

This is all fine and good but when you realize the nemesis system hinged on the main character being canonically resurrected each time which was his power, it doesn’t make sense because batman can’t do that

technically XCOM 2 had a version of the Nemesis system in their DLC War of the Chosen, where the Nemesis would spawn on the map and taunt you depending on the previous encounter

The last game I played where there was any form of the Nemesis System, besides Shadow of War, was Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The Nemesis System in that game was used to create the many different bounty hunters you could fight and would come after you… and that’s it. I want another game like Shadow of War again.

the biggest problem of the patent for me. Is that when the nemesis system is used again in Wonder woman, the improvements will be less than if a lot of people had explored similar concepts and even faster and easier ways to develop the same mechanic, they don't out of fear and we get only a few tries by game devs and mods, but they don't go that much further and are generally similar to what we got. Its a great concept for games superhero, mafia, pirates, medieval, even a police game any where you have a crew/party and has character creation i believe would be beneficial, and with the notion of traits we could have characters that fight, walk and talk differently, you have a character that's righ-thanded but you cut his hand and he flees, next time he has a prosthetic to hold a sword or uses swords in his left or even has a cannon now, or you have a friend character from the beginning but you abandon them in a siege or something and next time its a enemy, and the system being sophisticated enough to go beyond be defeated in battle would improve a lot whats already good.

Shadow of mordor was such a good first entry, it was so suprisingly fun I remember just devouring it and the DLC. But for some reason when War came out i felt no desire to play it and still haven't touched it more than an hour to today. That nemesis system tho, pretty genius. I'd love to see it brought to other IPs like assassin's creed or a Star Wars bounty hunter game could be sick. greed sucks.

There is probably a moment in this game that gave me one hell of an adventure thanks to the nemesis system I was just chilling in Lithlad going on a rampage killing captains to get gear and sell them for mirian, that was until I infiltrated an outpost and got alerted. I tried to fight back instead of running away with celebrimbor, we had killed over tens of them, but we got outnumbered heavily! I killed and killed until I was finally put down by a Savage orc named Dush. After he killed me, he got promoted to Captain and now became known as “Dush the Wanderer”. He was a poisonous mystic tribe slayer who was enraged by caragors, and had a fear of brutality. He was the cocky type, always scoffing on how he is the best warrior in the land. After tracking him down, he bluffed on how I was so weak and that he would be pleasured to kill me again. However, during our duel, I was able to overpower him and instead of killing him, I decided to shame him, giving him a fate worse than death. He ran away and I went along my way. Days passes and while I was helping my captains raid a camp, he showed up, ambushing us, vowing to me that he will get his revenge, due to the fact that I shamed him, causing him to get bullied by his own men. I overpowered him again, and shamed him again for his actions. The cycle kept continuing, I would track him down, he would track me, I would death threat him, he would ambush my captains trials, etc etc. However, with the amount of shaming I gave him, it caused his sanity to crumble slowly, then on one faithful day, during my captains Graug trial, he ambushed us yet again, and when I shamed him again, this time, the shame was so bad, he became a maniac! He escaped from within my grasp yet again. During this time, Celebrimbor already left me and I was in the Shadow Wars part of the game, I already garrisoned many of my Lithlad captains and warchiefs and transported them to Nurnen, Seregost and Gorgoroth to prepare the defenses, meaning, nobody was left to guard Lithlad besides my overlord. During this time, I was recruiting strong captains, but needed one who was so strong and op, he could hold the front gate all by himself just in case it get breached, thats when I discovered Dush The Wanderer was the perfect Captain I needed for the job. I tracked him down and led an assault on his camp with my captains and my Drake named Phoenix(yes I named my drake ty). After some fighting, I got him on his knees, finally dominating him and now he is one of my captains for my army. We went on many adventures, sabotaging many orc captains camps, their trials and ambushing them when they least expect them. We were a great team. To tell you he is an op orc would be a very big simplification. Since he was a slayer and a savage, his attacks are so fast, so aggressive, and deal so much damage, most captains he faces literally die within seconds, even those that can call in graugs, have epic determination, defender shields, sniper shots, marauder twin bolts or terror tribe chains, they all fell to him, while he barely gets a scratch on him. Since he is also a mystic, he had a morgul blade that lets him teleport and close gaps within a second. Meaning, even if the orc is a marksman or one who can prefers long range or dodging, he can still hit them. Also, since he is now a maniac, all he says is “Waaaaaaaaa!!!”, which was more funny and entertaining to me than his ego driven cocky side that kept taunting me when we were enemies. He also lost his weakness to brutality(mainly because maniacs can lose some of their weaknesses and he is a maniac after all, maniacs aren’t usually scared because they are insane). To reward all his efforts, I upgraded him to Epic(yes, the feats i told you a while ago, where he took dozens of captains in seconds were when he was a measly common, so imagine how strong he can be if he becomes epic or god forbid legendary) , finally giving him an elite gang that is just as aggressive as him. When I lost my fortress at Litlhlad, he is the one who led the charge against Sauron’s army with my men with his “Waaaaaaa!!!!” scream. With his help, we won the 2nd Battle for Lithlad. Everything was going well, until one siege back in Seregost caused 50% of my captains and 2 of my warchiefs to fall. So then, after making some decisions, I transferred Dush The Wanderer to his new region, Seregost. During many siege defenses, he was always the one who held back the enemy captains from capturing Point A, preventing them from progressing through my fortress. I also supported him in many missions just like back in Lithlad, ambushing camps, disturbing enemy orcs activities, doing some trolling, we had many adventures more. However, One day, I was bored and my orc men were bored too. I didn’t feel like going on a rampage with Phoenix or sabotage Az Teru The Beastmaster’s caragor pens for the 5th time. So i decided to fire up the Fight Pits and force my captains to entertain me and my orcs. It was going well, and since my captains were all legendary and had no weaknesses, things were going well. I then decided to put Dush The Wanderer in a fight pit for entertainment, without acknowledging the risks of the probability of him dying, because he is so powerful, there is no way he can die to a measely common dark assassin hunter orc(obvious foreshadowing). The fight started and everything turns out well, but during the half quarter, the assassin orc was somehow able to overpower Dush, and during the last 20 seconds, he was able to stab Dush and finally put an end to him. I was in shock , I saw my top Captain in both Lithlad and Seregost just killed by a measely common dark assassin orc in a fight pit. I was in despair, all those adventures I spent with Dush, all our fights, all our struggles, just ended there in that Seregost fight pit. I tracked down that assassin and instead of killing him, I shamed him until he became level 1(yo is this a parallel to how Dush became an unstoppable maniac, damn!). I showed no mercy and wanted him to suffer for what he did to my #1 Goated Orc. During one snowy night in Seregost, in the middle of the ice, I brutalized the assassin orc, who by that point became deranged, and his body was left there to rot. I finally made a rule to where I will never ever send any legendary/epic/any orc that has great abilities or skill set to the pit. From that point, I would usually only send into the fight pits random orcs I recruit, not my top captains, I was not that careless anymore. However, the story does not end there! After many days, guess who turns out to be alive all along! It’s Dush the Wanderer! He cheated death and was alive all along! I was breathing a sigh of excitement and relief. However it wasn’t the cheat death but stay loyal variation. He cheated death and went from “Dush the Wanderer” to “Dush the Gutless” , now having a scarred face covered in a sackbag. and was furious at me, and just screamed at me. He then rushed towards me with his triple strike, and I had to dodge it. It was a tiring fight, but i overpowered him and feeling betrayed again after his little rebellion during that one time, and despite me giving him mighty ologs and leveling him up, and supporting him on missions, he betrayed me again, I shamed him again. We were back to square one, where we were enemies again. I did some missions with my seregost captains, he would ambush me to troll with me. I trolled him when he was just chilling and drinking at his camp with his men, we were back to being nemeses. I then contemplated why he would betray me and not join my side again after surviving that pit fight turns out, it was because i never cares for him all along. Despite me giving him upgrades and supporting him on sabotage missions, I never actually saw him as an ally or a friend, I just saw him as a tool that is useful, and when I found a more powerful orc, I would just discard him. Despite all his contributions towards my war for middle earth, despite all his sacrifices to make sure my enemies fell, I didn’t care for him at all besides his usefulness. I never appreciated his sacrifices. Therefore, instead of using his betrayal to fuel my hate for him, I decided to reconcile with him. We had many fights within Seregost, but one faithful day, I lost my Seregost Fort. Then, on one great day, his Iron Will finally vanished during our fight, meaning I can finally recruit him again after all our struggles. We became General and Captain again, and I saw him as an actual ally now, not as a tool for my war. He led my Seregost forces against the new overlord, and me and him took down all the chokepoints alongside my Mystic captains and claimed the fortress, winning the 5th Battle for Seregost(yes seregost got attack a lot). Now being open minded, I finally upgraded him from Epic to Legendary and now for all his sacrifices, awarded him as the New Seregost Mystic Tribe Fortress Overlord. Tldr That was the story of Dush the Wanderer, who went from a Savage Grunt, to a formidable Mystic Captain nemesis, To Unstoppable Mystic Maniac, to Top Epic Captain of Lithlad, to Top Epic Captain of Seregost, To Fight Pit Loser, To Dush the Gutless(Ex Captain of the Gravewalker) who wanted nothing but vengeance on me, to allies again with Talion, to the New Overlord of The Mystic Tribe Seregost Fortress, what an story! Also I might Edit this soon with my xbox username so you guys can invade my Xbox shadow of war fortress and recruit Dush for your own so he can solo orcs for you guys, he is worth recruiting ;). I gotta update my fortress with some of my captains and warchiefs and level all of them to Legendary

Wow I actually looked up Luke Stephens Nemesis 2 days ago and couldn’t find anything. What a “coincidence”

It could’ve been amazing to see who else would have been able to use the Nemesis System and improve upon it.

Apart from the nemesis system, the game is pretty solid, and the gameplay feels amazing, not to mention the storyline is also good, especially for someone who geeks out about the lord of the rings franchise.

I was just talking about the nemesis system the other day and how its a crime that more games havent implemented it or something like it.