Shadow of Mordor Used Assassin's Creed II Code Says Former Ubisoft developer

A former Ubisoft developer, Charles Randall, who worked on the first two Assassin's Creed games, now claims that Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, appears to be using code and animations from the five year old Assassin's Creed II game.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor's eight minute game play video has been released on Thursday. While most people on social media networks agreed that the game's inspiration was from the Batman games by Warner, Randall shared his suspicions that Assassin's Creed 2 code and assets were used in the Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor game.

Randall's work on Assassin's Creed II focused primarily on combat. He first took to Linkedin to share his suspicions there.

"Check it out guys! I apparently made a Middle Earth game", he said, linking it to the Shadow of Mordor walkthrough video above. He then followed it up with a comment, "I know I don't have any legal rights to what I did on Assassin's Creed 2 but I sure hope I get a special thanks on that Middle Earth game."

After this, he then shot out a series of tweets to explain himself.

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

The developer went on to claim that he recognised specific moves and animations in the new game that could either be a direct imitation or even the exact programming code.

In the gaming industry, it is not an uncommon practice for studios to simply secretly purchase and utilise previously created generic code and animation. The process can help save time and deliver a finished product faster. None of the concerned studios have commented on the incident so far.

The game will be out later this year on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC

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