Yesterday, we got the news that industry layoffs aren’t slowing down, as Warner Bros. canceled Monolith Productions’ Wonder Woman game and shuttered the studio, also cutting two more studios at Player First Games and Warner. Bros Games San Diego.
Any jobs lost thanks to reported corporate incompetence are always a tragedy, but the loss of Monolith Productions cuts especially deep. This is a studio that celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, having worked on a breadth of titles across a wide range of genres.
The team’s work on first-person shooters was lauded with the release of the No One Lives Forever games, but with 2005’s F.E.A.R, Monolith Productions set standards that arguably haven’t been met since.
F.E.A.R. used reactive enemy AI (in the original, non-obnoxious meaning of the term) that challenged the player in unique ways.
Monolith Productions wasn’t content to stop there, dabbling in other genres like MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arenas, like League of Legends) before again striking gold with 2014’s Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.
A third-person action game, Shadow of Mordor is at first glance easily compared to one of Rocksteady’s Batman Arkham games or Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed titles, just with the trappings of Tolkien’s fantasy world.
The real magic that made Shadow of Mordor work is in a collection of unique gameplay mechanics referred to as the Nemesis system. Unique orcs can be harmed in a variety of ways, remembering the player and having their personalities evolve over time.
An orc that you failed to kill permanently might bear scars from the encounter, or recall that they were betrayed by a subordinate. It provided a fascinating junction point of systems that created something truly special for myself and for other players.
Over a decade later, Monolith Productions is no more, and we’ll never get to see the Wonder Woman game the team was working on. While some of the team’s games aren’t playable anymore due to lapsed rights issues and other problems, at least a portion of its history has been preserved.
That’s thanks to GOG, the CD Projekt-owned storefront that specializes in DRM-free games and has been working to revive older titles. The GOG Preservation Program is a focused effort to ensure games are not only available to purchase, but remain playable as technology marches on.
It’s a shame we have to look to GOG to preserve games in the first place, and there’s a lot to be said about the apathetic nature of many publishers toward ensuring games remain playable, but that’s another discussion.
For now, I’m thankful that at least someone is trying to push back, and I’m happy to buy games over again through GOG if it means having access to them forever in the future. Fittingly, F.E.A.R. is now part of the GOG Preservation Program, with the company added that more Monolith titles are coming in the future.
At the time I’m writing this, you can grab F.E.A.R. Platinum Edition from GOG for just $0.99 for the next two days, which is well worth the price, whether you’ve played it before or not. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is just $5, and similarly bundles in all the game’s DLC packs, while its follow-up Middle-earth: Shadow of War is $9.
This is hardly a full accounting of the work Monolith accomplished over the years, but I’m glad there’s at least some way of playing a handful of these games without any DRM in the future.
Rest well, Monolith Productions.
