Monolith Productions

Orcs remember the player's basic actions and build on them, like improv. The game secretly logs simple actions such as kill, flee, injure, heal and gather intel, and an orc picks the most interesting line from that list when you meet again. Running from a captain gets you called a coward later; planting a spy makes the next orc vow to torture maggots until he is found.

Mark Brown compares this to the "Yes, And" rule of improvisational theatre. The system starts as a villain generator and, in Shadow of War, grows into a story generator built on the player's relationships with orcs.

Orcs also hand the player story hooks to pick up. Story grows from both sides: an orc can prompt the player as well as respond. Ar-Karo beats the player, picks up the sword and breaks it, which makes the player want to hunt him down.

The player's reply, tracking him down, continues the story the orc started.

The story is assembled at runtime, not scripted ahead. Even branching games with several endings are plotted in advance, like a choose your own adventure book, so the player only navigates a script. Mordor builds its story one encounter at a time from your interactions with orcs, which makes it unpredictable and personal.

"It's constructed at runtime, encounter by encounter, using your interactions as narrative brickwork." Story generators existed in Rimworld and Crusader Kings, but not in a real time action game with blockbuster graphics.

Give every fight an exit other than the enemy's death. Stories need a surviving partner, so the player can flee, hurt orcs can retreat, a downed orc may escape, and an orc can spare a dying player to humiliate them. Each exit leaves a memory the next meeting builds on.

Maku the archer keeps downing the player with poisoned arrows but stops short of killing him: "I want a victory, not a mercy killing."

Player death becomes a story beat, borrowed from Burnout and Call of Duty. Talion is a gravewalker who respawns, so dying fuels revenge instead of being erased by a reload. Monolith drew on Burnout, where being wrecked sets up a rematch with a rival, and on the Call of Duty killcam, where you see your killer and hunt them.

Much of the design tried to recreate multiplayer rivalry with AI characters. "It's only because crashing is not considered a failure in Burnout that this sort of story can happen."

Killed orcs can return, and every meeting references the last. Each slain orc has a small chance to cheat death and come back with scars or prosthetics, like Ar-Karo the Stitch. An orc that kills the player levels up, gains strengths, sheds weaknesses and often challenges a bigger orc.

Ar-Karo returned half an hour after being killed and said, "Getting killed by you was the best thing that ever happened to me."

A ranking structure adds rise and fall stories beyond revenge. Shadow of War ranks orcs as Overlord, Warchiefs, captains and soldiers. Killing Talion can promote an orc, shaming a warchief demotes them, and random missions resolve on a timer so power shifts without the player.

Maku rose from a humiliating captain to Overlord and became untouchable without a full assault on his fortress.

Bodyguards, blood brothers and followers turn duels into a web of characters. Orcs can be bodyguards or devoted blood brothers, and the player can recruit orcs who swear allegiance. A recruit may betray you, a planted spy may be executed, and a follower may save you at a clutch moment.

Recruits mostly leave the map, so the follower bond is thinner than the rivalry. In one playthrough the orc who broke the player's sword returned as The Stitch, became a bodyguard and ended as overlord.

Build each orc around one clear, repeated trait. About 100 captains appear per game, so each gets one trait, such as the singer or the poet, that shapes its look, weapon and lines. Ghûra sings his threats and Zuka speaks in verse.

You may forget a name but remember "that guy who keeps talking about branding". The handcrafted Stitch can fill any role, backed by hundreds of voice lines.

Forge rivalries at the moment the orc kills you, and reward revenge. Kill animations are aggressive, the orc taunts and celebrates with a promotion, and it may take a new name recording how it killed you. Killing the orc that murdered you drops much better loot.

Keep dramatic twists rare so they stay surprising. Cheating death, betrayal and transformations get very low random chances, some can happen only once per playthrough, and most orcs never cheat death. A hidden interaction score that rises with each encounter makes the orcs you know best the most likely to return.

An invisible die roll decides whether a follower saves you when downed. "If it happens over and over it becomes rote, predictable, and just another gameplay mechanic."

Quietly cheat so key rivals stay in your story. A key rival can teleport in at the worst moment, and orcs can rarely travel between regions so old rivals return. If you kill or recruit everyone, the game can force someone to betray you.

Ar-Karo appeared mid fight half an hour after being killed. Design director Bob Roberts calls this "a knob we can turn"; on easy settings the stories stagnated.

Short lines let players fill gaps with their own story. Orcs speak in short stabs, not plot cutscenes. An orc seeking revenge for a blood brother never says who he is, so players pick the most interesting candidate themselves.

The design relies on people finding patterns in scattered events.

A patent and Shadow of War's lootboxes likely kept others away. Monolith holds a patent on the system, and studios may fear a lawsuit like Sega's case over The Simpsons: Road Rage. Shadow of War's microtransactions and lootboxes overshadowed its storytelling.

Similar systems such as Odyssey's mercenaries stay surface level. Warner Bros. should be free to use it, and Batman and Harry Potter rumours exist, but nothing is confirmed.