10 Incredible Video Game Mechanics That SHOULD Be Everywhere (But Aren't)

The Nemesis System was an innovative gameplay feature introduced in 2014's Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, where Uruks who defeat the player in combat climb the ranks of their internal hierarchy and become more powerful adversaries in future clashes.

More to the point, if they survive an encounter with the player they'll remember it for the rematch and adapt their strategy accordingly, and perhaps even show up to the battle sporting injuries from the previous fight.

It's a mechanic which helped the game world feel "alive" and every Uruk seem like more than merely disposable rent-a-goons, enough that many players hoped to see the feature become gaming's next big universal one.

But Warner Bros. ultimately prevented this by taking out a patent on Nemesis, enough to seemingly scare off any developer from attempting to imitate it.

It's all the more frustrating given that WB hasn't done anything with Nemesis since Middle-earth sequel Shadow of War back in 2017, so they're basically sitting on an incredible gameplay mechanic and not even fully exploiting it for their own gain.

All the same, it feels like there must be a way for creative developers to mimic Nemesis in a non-litigious way - borrowing the seeds of the idea yet executing it differently enough to not be legally actionable.

At this point, Nemesis is so well-known that it feels unfair for WB to have a monopoly on it, especially as they've effectively done nothing with it in over five years. Without video games building on the beloved mechanics of other prior games, the medium wouldn't be nearly as dynamic as it is today.

Nemesis would work so incredibly well for a wide variety of genres, from action to beat 'em ups to racers, so to wall it off feels like a huge disservice to gaming as a whole.