Ken Levine (writing for The New York Review of Video Games, which, despite the cheeky name, is actually a pretty interesting endeavour) has some surprisingly lofty praise for Shadow of Mordor:

There are two games that really kicked off what we think of as the modern “open world” game: Super Mario 64 and Grand Theft Auto III. These games unshackled the player from linear progression through a game’s levels. I think Shadow of Mordor is the first “open narrative” game. You’re not just checking off missions in a variable sequence. You’re changing the dramatis personae. Whenever you succeed or fail, the characters in the story respond to your actions, and not in the manner of a branching “choose your own adventure.” It is an excessively simple, yet impressively flexible, crime story.

The whole thing is worth reading if only to get an influential designer’s thoughts on an interesting game, but what really stood out to me is how he deliberately draws a connection between Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis System and the ideas behind Irrational’s next game, which Levine describes as “Narrative Lego”.

When he first started talking publicly about his concept for dynamic narratives, it all sounded like a Molyneuxesque fantasy, especially since there was no frame of reference that one could reasonably apply. (“Narrative Lego” is a cute term and appears descriptive on its face, but it doesn’t exactly hold up when you take the time to think about how such a system might work in practice.) However, assuming Irrational’s next game resembles Shadow of Mordor in some fashion, we finally have some context for what Levine is working on, even if it ends up being a very different kind of game. That’s exciting, given how well Shadow of Mordor came together.

Levine's project aside, I’m super curious to see how influential Shadow of Mordor ends up being in the long term. It’s clear that there’s a lot more that can be done to the formula — the Nemesis System is impressive while the illusion is intact, but spend a little time with the game and it’s easy to see the gears in motion and how they all fit together. Despite not being quite as complex as it would initially appear, it's still one of the most exciting ideas to manifest in a big-budget game in quite a while, so I hope there are plenty of studios chomping at the bit to one-up Monolith because it’s clear there’s an appetite for games that try to broaden what we think of as narrative experiences.

I quite liked and was very impressed by the Nemesis system (until the artifice became apparent after a few hours), while also finding the rest of the game to be a little bit thin (albeit in an entirely functional way that left me satisfied but not exactly impressed).

The fact that the people you fight remember what you did and have dialogue about it is definitely cool but it doesn't really alter the facts about what Mordor is at the core. Mordor is an Ubisoft-style (climb towers to reveal map) game, with Batman combat, GTA mission structure and standard cut-scene story delivery.

SOM is open in the way open world games should be. "Open world" over time has come to mean "do some of this bullshit here in between the semilinear missions we actually put work into". And SOM has that too, but you can ignore that and ignore the main mission and just do this really fun, versatile thing the way you want to do it and really make your own story. It delivers on the bullshit open world talking points marketspeak people have been regurgitating for years. I think somewhere between SOM and Farcry 4 there's the perfect open world experience, or at least exactly what I'm looking for. Interesting that Levine is so floored by this when his games are about as linear as they come(and to good narrative effect)

Open narrative seems like a the holy grail of RPG gaming, not convinced Mordor came anywhere close to truly achieving that though. But I guess to play it for myself now for sure.

I can certainly see why Ken Levine would like the game, given his interest in narrative and choice. I didn't necessarily enjoy it as much as he did, but it is like he says a step in the right direction for open world games. It would be interesting to see developers create a game where the "nemesis" system is more directly tied to the base storyline. I felt the two didn't meet each other in a satisfying way by the end of Shadow of Mordor.

He's an immersive sim guy at heart. Not surprised he enjoyed the Nemesis system, that's right up his street.

Loved it, and enjoy the layout of that site.

I think Mr. Levine has some awesome story telling skills and I think his recognition of SoM's "dynamic narrative" gives merit to it as a whole.

However, I think he says it best when he says, "Yes, these are baby steps toward realizing the kinds of stories that games can uniquely provide," because the systems in play are obvious to me. I see that it's randomly generated and that almost makes it less impact-full when I have my encounter with (insert orc name here.)

That's not to say it's not an awesome feat, but more that I think when the systems are laid bare - it's not as effective as a tailored narrative to me.

I would also love to see what Ken is working on; even more so now that this could even be tangentially related to it.

@sunbrozak said:

I think I'd be more interested in seeing a game where something like the nemesis system ends up replacing a traditional narrative rather than supplementing it. From the sounds of it, that's what Levine and co. are trying to do.

Gone Home is an immersive sim? I'm not one of those people who thinks Gone Home isn't a game---in fact, I quite enjoyed it for what it was---but it is nothing like Deux Ex, Thief, System Shock, or Vampire Bloodlines.