Middle-earth: Shadow of Wardeveloper Monolith Productions reveals that development of the game is “super stressful.” The developerannounced the title with a trailerearlier this year, promising to build on the hit game it created withShadow of Mordor.
In a new interview, Monolith’s creative VP Michael de Plater reveals that the entireShadow of Warteam is creating the game with the “assumption” that “if we fail, we’re doomed.” de Plater agreed that it can be “super stressful” as there are so few triple-A studios making triple-A games, developers “have to have that mentality that you’re either doing something great or probably no one’s going to want to give you the large sums of money it takes to try and do that again.”
That doesn’t sound like the best conditions to develop a game in and sounds more like a recipe for development hell if anything, but de Plater explains that “stress for us is generally a really positive thing because our whole studio is devoted to one game.” This can be “really exciting and really motivating,” says the developer, who notes that this was also the case withMiddle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, as it was the “first go in this genre. If we don’t succeed, no one’s gonna give us another chance.”
Many fans will agree thatShadow of Mordorabsolutely knocked it out the park and so if the development strategy isn’t broke, so to speak, then there’s no need to fix it. Many will also be hoping that this leads to another great game inMiddle-earth: Shadow of Mordoras the game also looks to be mighty ambitious. For example, Monolith has promised a massive world for players to explore, as detailed in theShadow of Waropen-world trailer, and the team will be under pressure to fill it with life and to ensure that exploring isn’t tedious.
The developer has also teasedbig improvements to the Nemesis System, which is responsible for enemy behavior and can also create characters that help players out or create enemies that mock them. It won’t be easy for Monolith to add even more reason to love a feature that fans already adored, so it’s very little surprise that the development team is feeling the heat. Fingers crossed that it will all pay off.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Warwill be available on August 22nd for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Project Scorpio.
