Anyone who was paying attention knew the project would have to be restarted last year. Ken Levine was really impressed by the Nemesis System from Shadow of Mordor. He wanted to build on that concept and find new, innovative ways to tell a compelling story. But Warner Bros. patented the system a year ago, stifling creativity in the process. After 7 years of work and experimenting, Ken can’t even use the system he was building a game around.
This is one of the reasons I hate when publishers patent game mechanics/concepts, Sony recently patented the strand concept from Death Stranding for example. The entire industry was built on inspiration and building on other people’s ideas. That’s how progress is made. Doom and Wolfenstein 3D technically weren’t the first FPS games, but they were extremely innovative and are largely considered the first traditional games of the genre. Imagine if id Software had patented the ideas and concepts they used to create both games.
Even Shadow of Mordor itself borrowed very heavily from the Arkham games and Assassin’s Creed. If you’re taking ideas from everyone else you have no business patenting anything.