Middle-earth: Shadow of War

Orcs build on whatever the player does, like improv's "Yes, And". The game quietly logs basic actions such as kill, flee, injure, heal and gather intel, and each orc picks the most interesting line from that list when you meet again. Run from a captain and he later calls you a coward; plant a spy and the next orc vows to torture maggots until he is found.

Orcs also hand the player hooks: Ar-Karo beats the player, picks up the sword and breaks it, which makes the player want to hunt him down. The story is built at runtime, encounter by encounter, using your interactions as "narrative brickwork", unlike branching games plotted in advance.

Give encounters endings other than death so stories keep going. Players can flee, orcs can retreat or humiliate a downed player instead of killing them, and every slain orc has a small chance to cheat death and return with scars or prosthetics. Each later meeting references the earlier run-ins, and an orc that kills you levels up and often challenges a bigger orc.

Talion is a gravewalker, so he respawns like a multiplayer player instead of reloading; Monolith took the idea from Burnout's rival rematches and the Call of Duty killcam. Ar-Karo returned half an hour after being killed and said, "Getting killed by you was the best thing that ever happened to me."

The system is simpler underneath than it looks, and that is the craft. Mark Brown uses the Nemesis System, alongside the AI of The Sims, as proof that seemingly complex systems are often basic rules that create magical experiences. The aim of game AI is a specific experience for the player, not a lifelike being.

Quote: "the point of AI is not to try and pass The Turing Test - it's to present interesting gameplay."

A rank hierarchy lets the same cast rise, fall and change. Shadow of War ranks orcs as Overlord, Warchiefs, captains and soldiers. Killing Talion promotes an orc, shaming a warchief demotes them, and randomly generated orc missions resolve on a timer, shifting power without the player.

This adds tropes like rags to riches and fall from grace: Maku, a humiliating captain, rose to Overlord and became untouchable without a full assault on his fortress.

Relationships between orcs turn one-on-one duels into a web. Orcs can be bodyguards to warchiefs or devoted blood brothers, and the player can recruit orcs as followers. Recruits can betray you, planted spies can be executed, and a follower can save you at a clutch moment.

The recruited Ar-Karo later showed up to save Mark from death. Recruits mostly leave the map, so the follower bond is thinner than the rivalry.

Give each orc one strong trait so players remember it. About 100 captains appear per game, so each orc is built around one clear trait, such as Ghûra who sings his threats or Zuka who speaks in verse, which shapes its look, weapon and lines.

You may forget a name but remember "that guy who keeps talking about branding". The Stitch is handcrafted but can fill any role, with hundreds of voice lines to cover every case.

Make defeat personal and pay the player for revenge. When an orc kills you, the kill animation is aggressive, the orc taunts you, celebrates with a promotion and may rename itself after how it killed you. Killing the orc that murdered you drops much better loot, so emotion and incentive point the same way.

Quote: "killing an Orc who murdered you leads to way better loot."

Keep the wildest twists rare so they stay surprising. Nearly everything is a random roll, with the wildest events least likely; some transformations can happen only once per playthrough, and most orcs never cheat death. A hidden interaction score rises with each encounter, so the orcs you know best get the key roles and are most likely to return.

Frequent humiliation or betrayal would turn rote and become just another mechanic. A hidden die roll also decides whether a follower saves you when downed.

Hidden knobs keep the right rivals in the story. A key rival can teleport in at the worst moment, orcs can rarely travel between regions so old rivals return, and if you kill or recruit everything the game can make someone betray you.

Design director Bob Roberts calls this "a knob we can turn"; on easy settings the stories stagnated. Dialogue stays in short stabs, such as an orc avenging an unnamed blood brother, leaving players to fill the gaps themselves.

A patent and the sequel's lootbox backlash buried the system. Monolith holds a patent on the system, and other studios may fear a lawsuit like Sega's case over The Simpsons: Road Rage. Shadow of War's microtransactions and lootboxes overshadowed its storytelling at release and have since been removed.

Warner Bros. should be free to use it, and Batman and Harry Potter rumours exist, but nothing is confirmed.

Imitations copy the surface without the structural depth. Assassin's Creed Odyssey's Mercenary system and Watch Dogs: Legion's Play as Anyone take a surface version of the idea, without the structural overhaul or focus on meaningful emergent stories.

Quote: "these things just can't touch Mordor when it comes to generating narratives."