BioShock creator espouses Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor’s storytelling success

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system is something of an inspiration to BioShock creator Ken Levine, proof of player interest in the lofty adaptive narrative design ideas he pursues.

In a post on Medium, Levine talks about his now two-year project two development a non-linear story system for videogames that would be geometric, based on X and Y states and not dialogue trees and clearly defined paths. And while the game designer feels his yet-named new studio has “made huge inroads,” they questioned whether gamers by and large would “give a shit.” That is, until Shadow of Mordor moseyed on over.

“As I was playing the game, I wondered, ‘How are they doing this? How are they letting me kill so many bosses in any order? Doesn’t that break the game?,’” Levine muses in his post. “And then I realized: The orcs aren’t bespoke characters. They comprise dozens of bits of micro-content that can be mixed and matched to build thousands of combinations on the fly. An orc named Horhog the Armorer is actually ‘Name X the Name Y.’

“The attributes that make up Horhog’s character—he’s afraid of fire but angered by the sight of his minions dying—are chosen from a list and assigned by the game dynamically. Even his body his armor, his scars are attached algorithmically as the player meets Horhog on the field of battle. Horhog will even remember that the last time you met, he kicked your scrawny human ass. These orcs, and how you choose to defeat them, are the story of Shadow of Mordor. They project both real menace and an almost slapstick Grand Guignol, the love children of Sauron and Eliza Doolittle”

As such, Levine asserts, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor “tells a story that could never exist in another medium.” And it’s his opinion that Mordor represents the first small steps—but the most difficult ones—toward videogames realizing their full potential as a storytelling medium unlike any other.

For more on Mordor, check out Andrew’s uncharacteristically praise-piled review.

Source: Medium

BioShock creator espouses Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor’s storytelling success