How Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis System Changed the Boss Fight System
Shadow of Mordor released in 2014 to good reception overall. The game quickly became the highest selling game for a game based in the Lord of the Rings universe. Since 2014 the game has received an overall rating of 9/10 from its players. With such good reviews, the game must have done things well compared to the previous Lord of the Rings games.
Some of the success of the game was from the introduction of a dynamic boss system. The Nemesis system allows the game to change up some of the mini-bosses that appear in the game. These bosses are just normal Uruk that has done things to move up the ranks in Sauron's army. The game starts with a set of Uruk that makes up Sauron's army. These are his high ranking officials that the general Uruk warriors follow. This system is fully dynamic, as you kill these Uruk that makeup Sauron’s army, his army will weaken, but the opposite will happen when you die. When you die, Sauron’s army grows stronger. The Uruk generals have a power attached to them along with skills and weaknesses. If a non-general Uruk kills you in combat they will be promoted to the leaderboard in the Sauron army and will become your nemesis and a boss. This design allows the game to balance itself or make missions harder dynamically.

This system is very simple as it doesn't require the player to interact with it too heavily. The player generally has three options on this menu. Firstly they can gain intelligence on an Uruk they don't know or want to know more about. This allows the player to look for different paths to remove powerful Uruks from positions. Secondly, the player can use this system to target specific Uruk. if an Uruk’s location is known an event will be made to have the player fight this specific Uruk. And third, the player is able to use this system with Uruk’s they have taken control of and cause power struggles. This is a late-game mechanic that allows the player to get high ranking officials under their control in Sauron's army.
This system is overall very simple for the player to use but it also adds complexity to the game as the mini-bosses are ever-changing. This design aspect I feel captures the hellish nature of the Uruk army and solidifies this as a Lord of the Rings game.
