Development of
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which took about three years, began in late 2011. The game's lead developer was Monolith Productions, who had experience on a Middle-earth game with
Guardians of Middle-earth (a
multiplayer online battle arena game released in 2012). According to design director Michael de Plater,
Shadow of Mordor was developed in parallel with
Guardians of Middle-earth but handled by a separate team. It was published by Warner Bros., who had published the
Batman: Arkham game series. The game was designed by de Plater, who had worked with
Creative Assembly on
Rome: Total War and
Ubisoft on ''
Tom Clancy's EndWar and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier''.
Gameplay design Shadow of Mordor was Monolith's first
third-person open-world video game, and de Plater considered its development an educational experience for the studio. In Monolith's introduction to the genre, many core mechanics were built from scratch and the studio were inspired by successful video games such as the
Batman: Arkham series created by
Rocksteady Studios; those games inspired
Shadow of Mordor stealth and free-flow combat mechanics. The studio considered Rocksteady's games good examples of how to handle a licensed title. The studio had to cancel the project, codenamed
Apollo, after one-and-a-half year of development, though elements from that game, such as the nemesis system, were reused in
Shadow of Mordor. The game's signature feature is its Nemesis system. Its origins came from management in WB Games in the early 2010s, seeing that past single-player games like
Batman: Arkham Asylum had great initial first sales, but which failed to capture revenue from second-hand sales. WB Games tried other experiments across its studios, such as with downloadable content that could only be activated only once in
Batman: Arkham City. For Monolith, their goal was to make a gameplay element that would lead players to keep the game disc within their library rather than seek second-hand sales. The team wanted to create a system which allows
non-playable characters to respond to player's actions, creating personal stories for each player and making otherwise nameless Orcs in the game memorable and unique, such that players would not want to part with the game. The team also hoped that the system would provide tension and competition, similar to a multiplayer game. The studio was inspired by
sports games, where the narrative continues even when players lose a match. This can prevent immersion and narrative from breaking when the player characters die in the game. while enabling players to create their own villain, leading to a more organic story.
Story and art The game has a standalone plot. Early in development, the team consulted Peter Jackson, director of
The Lord of the Rings and
The Hobbit film trilogies, who advised them against a film
tie-in. To depict well-known characters the company partnered with
Middle-earth Enterprises, the franchise-rights holder, to prevent misuse and contradiction between the game's story and Tolkien's. The game was written by
Christian Cantamessa, who was lead writer and lead designer for
Red Dead Redemption. According to the team, the story was designed to be accessible for all players regardless of their familiarity with the franchise. Although Torvin was originally proposed as a playable character, the idea was scrapped. The team hired
David Salo, a linguist who worked on Tolkien's languages for the
Lord of the Rings film trilogy, to develop the Orcs' Black Speech. and studied photos of Iceland and New Zealand and yellow stone found worldwide. Since
Shadow of Mordor is set before
The Lord of the Rings, its landscape is less post-apocalyptic; environments also vary by weather, lighting and atmosphere. In designing the game's music, the team used a number of sonic tools which synchronize with other aspects of the game (such as player actions and enemy movements); combat music included
waterphones and
spring drums. ==Release==