Although a few years have passed since the release of Shadow of Mordor, fans will likely remember the surprising quality of the game. Most notable of the game’s features, the Nemesis System allowed for NPC’s to have unique personalities, social structures, and reactions to the player character actions. In a recent interview, Shadow of War developer Michael de Plater, the creative VP at Monolith, talked at length about creating the sequel and the stress that comes with it.

One of the major parts of the presentation leading up to the interview was allowing the press to play the game. During that playthrough, Michael noted that he had never seen a character before. With the functionality the Shadow of War developer created for the franchise, that’s entirely possible, and the creative VP was asked how often that occurred.

Every single day at the moment. We have all of this dialogue and we have all of these traits and all the strengths and weaknesses and then we have all of the roles. Then we have all of the character art, or the body paint or the piercings, or the scars that can modify all of that. Then we have all the animations. It’s just a ridiculously colossal amount of content in each one of those buckets, but then you have to take all of that content and put it all together. It’s actually very late in the process that it all starts to click.

In Shadow of Mordor, we had variety. The characters had differences, but it was a little bit more random variety, whereas now, we really have procedurally generated characters. We still have more variety, but now, when you do meet someone, what he looks and what his role is and what his personality is, and where you find him in the world and what he is doing–all those things are lining up a lot more.”

According to the Shadow of War developer, the scary part of development was in fact that all the pieces came in separately. Seeing that all come together was “really terrifying”, but the success means that players will have more memorable encounters and surprises that are genuine. Overall, the sequel intends to provide a deeper experience for the players.

When asked about the stress of living up to and surpassing Shadow of Mordor, de Plater was candid yet optimistic about the kind of pressure that comes along with trying to create a sequel that will satisfy the fan base. Here is what the Shadow of War developer had to say about it:

Probably some people would disagree, but I think stress for us is generally a really positive thing because our whole studio is devoted to one game. That assumption is like, basically, if we fail, we’re doomed. It’s all or nothing, which is really exciting and really motivating. That was very clear on Shadow of Mordor; that was the situation. “This is our first go in this genre. If we don’t succeed, no one’s gonna give us another chance.” I think we feel exactly the same.

…It’s super stressful, but there’s not a lot of triple-A games or triple-A studios, so I think you 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.”

Shadow of War has been an ambitious endeavor to be sure, and one that will outshine Shadow of Mordor by the way things are looking. This time around the developers didn’t scale back as much and were able to develop the Nemesis system further to allow for more significant differences between characters and thus more meaningful stories. That will likely make the sequel one that players will enjoy immensely.

Shadow of War was confirmed for PC, Project Scorpio, and PlayStation 4 Pro, however, Monolith has no plans for a Switch version at this time. A Summer release is set for the game, and players can get their hands on it August 22nd. The game will be available for $59.99, with a Silver Edition at $79.99 and Gold Edition at $99.99.

Will the new additions to the Nemesis system blow Shadow of Mordor out of the water? Join in on the conversation in the comments section below! As always, don’t forget to follow DFTG on Twitter for live gaming and entertainment news 24/7!