9 Amazing Video Game Features You'll NEVER See In Anything Else

The role of thumb in video games is that if somebody comes up with a unique, ground-breaking feature or mechanic that's lovingly embraced by critics, that idea is going to be lifted and used in countless other titles from a wide variety of genres.

And generally this isn't a bad thing - sharing ideas and concepts is far better for the growth of the gaming industry than insisting that, because you invented a feature, it's merely yours to use.

And really the only thing that prevents developers from adopting other games' creative features is the law, because as the history of gaming has proven, protective devs sure love filing patents.

While on one hand you can understand especially smaller dev teams wishing to protect their brainchild idea by establishing that they invented it, ultimately taking what are often incredibly broad concepts and registering them to deter their use elsewhere comes off as needlessly defensive.

Granted many patents are invalidated in court, but for most developers the patent will serve as an effective deterrent from even trying to use another game's idea, because it just isn't worth the time and effort to litigate the matter.

And so, if you wondered why these nine incredible video game features haven't been used elsewhere, here's what went down...

What separates Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor from being just another passable open-world game based on a name IP is its ingenious Nemesis system, which keeps persistent track of the Uruk hierarchy throughout your adventure.

Rather than all enemies simply being generic, anonymous foes, many of them have names, and those that either kill the player or survive an encounter with them will be promoted and in turn grow stronger.

Better yet, in the event you're killed, your online friends will even be invited to take down the Uruk responsible on your behalf.

Nemesis was by far the most acclaimed aspect of the game and so unsurprisingly returned for 2017's sequel, Shadow of War.

Many began to question, however, why the evidently brilliant mechanic hadn't appeared in other games, for though the more recent Assassin's Creed games introduced the similar Order of the Ancients feature, it wasn't nearly as intricate.

For many devs, the initial answer seemed to be that the Nemesis system was simply too challenging and time-consuming to implement relative to the rewards it reaped, though earlier this year Warner Bros. confirmed their claim on the mechanic by having their formal patent confirmed.

The publisher had been trying to patent Nemesis since March 2015, which offers the most likely answer for other developers steering well clear.

Sadly with Shadow of War posting disappointing sales and nary a word of a follow-up in the four-plus years since, it's looking incredibly likely that Nemesis is going to die a shockingly premature death.