Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was patented by publisher WB Games back in 2016. An article published by PlayStation Universe was picked up by ResetEra, leading to an intense debate about the patent. While some folks claimed that they’ve known about the patent, many evidently missed this one, including a lead developer at Obsidian Entertainment, who took issue with it. Josh Sawyer, whose tweets seem to have prompted PSU’s article, wrote: Somehow I missed that WB patented the Nemesis system. Lmao what a load of shit. If you take someone’s design and make a better version of it, you should be given a trophy and a triumph through the streets and the people who made the previous version should applaud you and say, ‘wow that was really cool.’ Like I didn’t want to before but this actually makes me want to make a Nemesis variant because this is so stupid. If I ever try to legally protect a gameplay mechanic I hope I am executed via the Persian boats!