Sadly, Judas Won't Be Able to Make Full Use of One of Its Inspirations

Sadly, Judas Won’t Be Able to Make Full Use of One of Its Inspirations

• Judas is heavily inspired by BioShock, but also draws inspiration from Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system.
• Warner Bros. patented the Nemesis system to prevent similar systems, but Ghost Story Games may have found a way to incorporate it.
• Judas’ narrative is choice-driven, potentially impacting the game’s characters, similar to the effects of Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system.

Judas is an upcoming first-person shooter and the first title by Ghost Story Games, led by Ken Levine, creator of the hugely popular BioShock series. Judging by what has been revealed so far, Judas takes heavy inspiration from BioShock in its dystopian environments and the player character’s elemental abilities, which may make it a decent placeholder for fans until BioShock 4 finally arrives. However, Judas has other inspirations some may not be aware of, with one of them being taken from Monolith Productions’ Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and its predecessor, Shadow of War.

Despite Judas’ obvious BioShock roots, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor has been cited as one of its inspirations — specifically, the Lord of the Rings adventure’s innovative Nemesis system. With the Nemesis system, Shadow of Mordor’s and Shadow of War’s enemies remember the actions of the player to the point that their behaviors and appearance are altered during their next encounter with the player. Unfortunately, following the massive success and positive reception of the Nemesis system, Warner Bros. took legal action to prevent the system and the ideas behind it from being liberally used by other game developers in the future, meaning Judas likely won’t be able to make full use of it.

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Judas Might As Well Be BioShock 4

Judas is the next IP coming from Ken Levine, Creative Director of BioShock, and it resembles BioShock so closely it might as well be BioShock 4.

Judas Won’t Be Able to Make Full Use of Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis System

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Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis System Is Patented by Warner Bros.

To protect Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system from future duplicates, Warner Bros. officially patented the system in 2021. According to the patent, the Nemesis system includes “a number of NPCs present in the game, who first interact with the player character and remember their interaction with the player character. In the second interaction, this memory affects the appearance of the NPC, the behavior of the NPC, and the hierarchy of the NPC among other NPCs.” While this covers just about everything any system similar to the Nemesis system might try to draw inspiration from, there may still be hope for Judas.

Thankfully, the patent mentions that other developers who want to use a similar Nemesis system can ask permission from Warner Bros, but if Warner Bros. went through this much trouble to protect the system from other developers, it’s unlikely they’ll hand out permission without heavy consideration, and not without limitations either. Still, there is a ray of hope for Judas, as it’s possible Ghost Story Games was able to get the go-ahead from Warner.

How the Nemesis System Might Still Be Present in Judas

Despite the Nemesis system being protected by a patent, there are still ways Judas might apply the general idea behind the system. In a fairly recent PlayStation Blog post, Ken Levine shared that Judas players “are the driver of every event in a story with a new cast of characters to get to know — and change — in ways you haven’t experienced before in our games.” Here, Levine is revealing that Judas’ narrative is heavily choice-driven, with those choices largely impacting the game’s characters, perhaps more than anything else.

Judas’ Nemesis system inspiration may only go as far as certain player-made choices simply changing the game’s characters, as Levine suggested in the PlayStation Blog post. It’s difficult to determine the full extent this could be taken though, as “social vendettas” are considered one of the most defining characteristics of Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system. This means that, unless Ghost Story Games was able to get permission from Warner to use the Nemesis system, Judas’ characters will not be directly influenced by their memory of the player’s choices.

If Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system is somehow present in Judas, it will likely add plenty of layers to the player’s choices, so hopes are that Ghost Story has permission to use it to some extent. Nevertheless, Ken Levine’s past games have proven to be more than worthwhile, so Judas may also turn out the same nonetheless.

Bioshock 4

FranchiseBioShockPlatform(s)PS5, PCDeveloper(s)Cloud ChamberPublisher(s)2K GamesGenre(s)FPS