Ubisoft planned to sue WB Interactive Entertainment for copying Assassin’s Creed in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
It was recently revealed that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment had patented the Nemesis system from the Middle-earth series. Assassin’s Creed animator Jonathan Cooper reacted to this news. He revealed that Ubisoft was planning to sue WB Interactive Entertainment. According to the French publisher, in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, many elements of Assassin’s Creed were copied, but the lawsuit was never sent.
In a personal microblog, Jonathan Cooper wrote, “This is a cheeky move [Nemesis patent] given that the locomotion systems and other UI elements [Middle-earth] were clearly copied (without code theft) from Assassin’s Creed. Ubisoft was suing Warner Bros. after Shadow of Mordor’s announcement; the publisher was discouraged from filing a lawsuit due to possible backlash. “
According to Jonathan Cooper, trying to make game design elements their own is bad for the industry. The community could have criticized Ubisoft, so the company did not sue Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. And in another post, Cooper, referring to the animator from the Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor team, talked about the game’s production. It turns out that at the time of its creation, Monolith Productions studied animation in Assassin’s Creed using reverse engineering.
