Monolith has managed to generate a lot of buzz regarding their upcoming Lord of the Rings title called Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor . However, despite the positive press, they now have to push back against new claims it’s nothing more than an Assassin’s Creed clone.
One former developer went so far recently as to accuse Monolith of actually lifting animation code from one of Ubisoft’s previous ‘ Creed titles on his Twitter feed. However, Michael de Plater (design director on the project) responded by saying everything you see in Shadow of Mordor was built from scratch (and points to the Arkham franchise as inspiration). “Honestly, we built everything from the ground up for this game…We absolutely, at the inception, looked at Batman, in their combat and stealth. As soon as people play Shadow of Mordor , any experience we’ve had where people get their hands on, it’s totally its own thing.” He touts.
De Plater revealed that, while these claims are having no real effects on the course of development, they do come out of left field in his mind. “I think we were just a bit surprised,” he says “because in any other genre it’s such a given. Nobody would bat an eyelid with a shooter, or a sports game, that two games in the same genre have some elements in common.”
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor hits stores this October.