A modder has used AI to put Middle-earth: Shadow of War’s Nemesis System inside Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2.
The enRage mod, created by nicklovin99, tracks how individual enemies feel about you. This works largely the same way as Shadow of War’s much-loved Nemesis System, creating rivalries on the fly and disrupting the ranks of rival gangs. And, like the Nemesis System, enRage names every single NPC in the game. Some like you, some fear you, and some want you dead.
It groups people by gangs, groups, and affiliations, so you’ve got the O’Driscoll Boys, Lemoyne Raiders, the U.S. Army, The Klan, the Wapiti people, the Bronte Family, the Murfee Brood, the Skinner Brothers, Van der Linde, and unaffiliated randoms. These are all tracked in a new menu.
When you kill an affiliated NPC, their status within the gang gets passed along to a new member in the organization. The Hierarchy menu page tracks every NPC in the game, and tells you how they feel about you.
Then there’s the X-ray page, which allows you to see NPC skeletons and what injuries they carry, with limping and paralysis showing up as possible health conditions on the mod trailer. You can injure an enemy and hold them at gunpoint to use a new interaction menu, forcing them to tell you about another member of their gang.
Like RimWorld, it also tracks interactions NPCs have with each other on another World page. It creates an illusion of the world moving on without you, with people adopting stray dogs, recovering from alcoholism, and starting new feuds with each other.
Each NPC also has traits, such as calm, sharp, introverted, and, of course, drunk. It also tracks their faith — or lack of it, don’t tell Dutch — and what they do for a living. These clashing ideologies cause gang wars that wage with or without your involvement, and you can step in to help out either side or take care of two in one. Annoy a gang enough and they’ll send hunting parties after Arthur, making every trip across the open world perilous — it’s fertile ground for systemic stories.
Early Access for the enRage mod is available now on Nexus Mods. nicklovin99 added a disclaimer to the mod’s description, saying: “AI Transparency – Claude Code assisted in the creation of scripts and systems.”
The last few weeks have seen an explosion in AI-generated video game modding, with some using the technology to port games to a browser, mash two existing games together, or even make new games using existing, popular IP. Video game companies have reacted by issuing DMCA takedowns, but some have also issued statements somewhat in support of what’s happening.
And some even want a piece of the action. For example, last week, Xbox boss Asha Sharma announced Xbox Labs, a new initiative aimed at getting games on web browsers. It was seen as a reaction to the growing community of games getting improved versions ported into web browsers (like the 94fps browser version of Halo: Combat Evolved).
“In recent weeks, we’ve seen games rapidly decompiled and rebuilt to run on hardware they were never originally designed to support. Windows PC builds have been translated to run on Apple Silicon or ported to run inside a browser through WebAssembly and WebGPU, the latter now approaching 90% global browser support. Perhaps more surprisingly, we’ve seen many of the biggest games in the world have been remixed into the source code of another,” Sharma said.
“These experiments challenge long-held assumptions about our industry: the tether between software and hardware, the boundary between creation and play, and how people discover and experience games. While it is hard to predict the future of gaming, it is easy to see the possibilities in making great games easier to access, giving old games new life and allowing more players to become creators and co-creators. These are unmistakably good outcomes for players, even when (and sometimes because) they challenge our existing business models.”