Shadow of Mordor Has Only Scratched the Surface of Middle-earth

Shadow of Mordor left us with the impression that the future is bright for Monolith’s version of Middle-earth, and that seems to be the takeaway from this new interview with design director Michael de Plater on GameSpot as well, since it largely focuses on the studio’s inspirations and future plans for digging in even further. An excerpt:

“BioShock was very a big inspirational game for us, not because of the linear narrative, but because of the way it told its world story,” de Plater explained. “I think it did that so incredibly well and managed not only to communicate the history within the world, but even the themes and that idea of choice in games. That really got us thinking about, what would it mean if that choice actually was real rather than the illusion of it being real?

“We’re [Monolith and Levine] both definitely trying to tackle the same issues with narrative. And in that piece he used the word ‘˜choose your own adventure’ to describe trying to make truly systemic stories that respond to players rather than huge branching authored stories. We’ve just taken the first baby steps of what we’re trying to do.”

It sounds like Monolith with continue to work on and iterate the Nemesis system, the colorful military hierarchy of Orcs that players use as a canvas on which to paint their Shadow of Mordor story. De Plater suggested they have “only scratched the surface” in terms of what is possible with the system and that the intrigue of the Orcs themselves bolstered the appeal of the setup.

“The most interesting thing about the Orcs is the way they will turn on each other,” de Plater said, noting that Talion is not the only antagonists these Orcs face–they have each other. “So you as an individual could plausibly be the spark that sets off their own internal fights, the way Sam and Frodo, Merry and Pippin manage to do in The Lord of the Rings. It’s a way to address the one-man army idea. Those ideas looped back into each other.)