Assassin’s Creed 2 Dev Questions Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Similarities

Popular games have always strongly influenced later titles, so I can’t say I was particularly surprised when I saw that Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor featured some very similar climbing to Assassin’s Creed, but I have to admit, I didn’t expect to see a developer from the Assassin’s Creed 2 team imply that Monolith is using assets and code from Ubisoft’s title.

Here are the quotes from Charles Randall (lead combat designer on Assassin’s Creed 2):

Seriously, can someone tell me how Assassin’s Creed 2 code and assets are in this Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor game?

this is *my* code in that game! I better at least see myself in the special thanks. WTF?

where did you find out about this?

Watch the video. That’s AC2 stuff in there. Code/anim for sure.

I mean no offense, but this seems to be a lot closer to Batman than AC2, climbing animations aside.

I spent two years staring at AC2. I know it when I see it.

Later on Randall backtracked and argued that he wasn’t implying theft:

People seem to think I was implying theft — not at all. I just assumed either a licensing deal or just AC used as heavy reference.

That said, you can check a comparison video made from a fan and make your own conclusions on whether what design director Michel de Plater told Eurogamer is true or not:

When asked about the influence of the Assassin’s Creed games, de Plater replied:

“We didn’t think much about them at all. We just wanted to do a third-person, open-world action adventure. And then now, just by the time you have stealth and melee combat and you’re hunting guys behind enemy lines, the comparisons maybe come out at that point. It definitely wasn’t something we were consciously going for.”

Personally, while I very much doubt that code was stolen or even just licensed, I also really doubt the Assassin’s Creed animations and mechanics weren’t referenced by Monolith while working on Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

Spotted on Eurogamer.