Monolith Productions Closes, Leaving Nemesis System's Future in Doubt

The studio behind the groundbreaking Nemesis System was shut down by Warner Bros., ending plans for its use in the canceled Wonder Woman game.

The Nemesis System, introduced in 2014's Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, personalized gameplay with NPCs that remembered and adapted to player interactions.
Originally developed to address declining sales caused by the second-hand game market, it aimed to make single-player games more replayable and harder to resell.
Warner Bros. patented the Nemesis System in 2021, restricting its use by other developers, but has not implemented it in new titles since 2017.
Monolith Productions, the studio that created the Nemesis System, was shut down in 2025, halting development of its Wonder Woman project that would have featured the system.
Recent retrospectives have highlighted the system's innovative impact on gaming and lamented its underutilization due to patent restrictions and Monolith's closure.