Monolith: The Definitive Review
T.R.O.N.O.L.F.2.0.0.0.0.
News of studio closures and redundancies generally wash over me with a kind of supine acquiescence to the profit motive and the faceless horror of modern corporate capitalism, but the news that Warner Bros has completely closed down Monolith was a genuinely saddening moment. It was on a par with the closure of Arkane Austin last year, although in Monolith’s case, it somehow feels even more bleak. Someone remarked on Bluesky that on average, they’d give a newly-purchased independent studio about five years before being closed by whatever corporate behemoth had swallowed them. Dear old Monolith managed nearly three times that, so well done them, I suppose?
There’s a stoic urge to just accept the caprice of the entertainment juggernauts as they blindly flail around in search of whatever bandwagon they can still milk some profit growth from, but it’s hard to put a brave face on yet another terrible outcome borne out of chasing the Live Service gold rush. It makes you wonder who’s selling the shovels here - the engine suppliers? The recruitment companies? Fuck knows, but it’s definitely somewhat crushing to see a company with such a creative history get chopped thanks to, presumably, predictions that some godawful IP rinse wasn’t going to generate sufficient growth. What was it? Fucking Wonder Woman? After the studio had been railroaded into doing Lord Of The Rings titles, one of which was criticised for forcing Live Service elements seven fucking years ago? The darkly comic take on this is that sense of absurdity, of an entertainment giant spectacularly missing the ball for years on end, of trying to shoulder-barge its way into relevance without any sense of real innovation. The insult to injury is how it’s done with such a blinkered sense of imagination, as if the owners and custodians of genuine creative greatness had no clue about the delightful spirit that runs through so many of Monolith’s greatest hits.1
I think perhaps the most telling thing about Warner Bros’ last decade in videogames is the fact that nobody really associates Warner Bros with videogames, despite the Warner Bros. Games label. Not like EA or Activision. Perhaps there’s some belief at the heart of WB that the brand is just the same as Disney, a licensor rather than a producer, and perhaps it’s that critical dishonesty in its self-image that underlies the mismanagement of great development talent. The IP comes first, even if DC is arguably less bankable than Marvel,2 and Warner Bros still thinking that its comic-book IP is viable. This confidence seems somewhat unfounded, given that the consumer base increasingly rejects Marvel’s full-spectrum flailing to monetise whatever it can after a string of high-profile flops. Of course, the most laughable part of the Monolith tragedy is not an IP but a mechanic - the Nemesis system. A subject of much fury over the last few days, the fact that WB patented Shadow of Mordor’s revenge engine has served as a kind of lightning rod for rage. It’s almost the voodoo doll that mortally-offended defenders of all things videogame stick their pins into. Keeping the patent but killing the studio that invented it ably illustrates the outright callousness of corporate thinking by reducing an entire studio’s output to a single idea that can be legally gatekept. However I honestly couldn’t give a fucking shit about the Nemesis system. Sure, it was great in-game, for that game. But I don’t think the tragedy of that system being locked in WB’s vault is anywhere near the tragedy that unfolded in slow motion from F.E.A.R. onwards. Perhaps it really is the symbol of corporate authoritarianism, of corporate asset hoarding, of the exploitation possible by the rich, of the poor. In a sense, the Nemesis system shines as example of the arch-capitalist jewel in the crown, although for me it really does symbolise the desecration of 30-odd years of work by boiling it down into a single interactive commodity.
What upsets me more, perhaps, than the fatiguing march of an industry committed to unbelievable levels of shittiness, is the weird callousness of Monolith retrospectives. Of the three (3) that I read on commercial sites, I was shocked by the shallowness of affect in some of the retrospecting. Perhaps infected by the same corporate tyrannies that apply editorial pressure unconsciously, all by themselves, these media laments for a studio (which they never bothered to ever really champion) offered incomplete timelines of note; all of them excluded TRON 2.0, which as I wrote about is actually a wonderfully complete evocation of both the TRON universe and the fledgling Open World Adventure.3 Somewhat ignored at the time, it remains cruelly overlooked in favour of Monolith’s turn to the darkside with F.E.A.R. and the Condemned series. And while I may get angry about people shoehorning third-hand opinions on Shogo into their hastily-packaged Monolith memorials, it’s the lack of love for TRON 2.0 that saddens the most. There was a brightness of aspect, a delight in possibility in TRON 2.0 that seemed to fade in the post-F.E.A.R. catalogue. I mean, despite it having a great system for in-game access control, a nice upgrade system, lovely weapons that fit the fictional universe and so on, the idea that Monolith’s worth is now reduced to a mechanism of revenge, of continuing a cycle of violence, is all the more crushing given what the studio should be remembered for. There was something quasi-utopian in TRON 2.0’s vectors-and-gouraud architecture, its complexification of N.O.L.F. 2’s player upgrades, its willingness to leap upward with sophistication in its thinking and elegance in its expression. It was an embodiment of soaring ambition - and an ambition that fulfils and surpasses its goals, no less. As N.O.L.F. 2 strode far ahead of its predecessor, TRON 2.0 stretched even further still, building a legacy of the complexified FPS template that could slot perfectly between the purely arcade and the larger FPS-with-an-inventory fare of Deus Ex or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. It’s that which I most miss, which I most regret we’ll never see from Monolith. That potential, which always hung in the air as perhaps the vaguest of slim possibilities, but there nonetheless, is now emphatically dead.
It’s useful, perhaps, to contrast the fate of Monolith with that of Obsidian. Perhaps it’s the better of two evils to be bought by a platform holder rather than an entertainment corp, as Obsidian seems to have woven a similar path for a similar amount of time. While Obsidian certainly isn’t out of the woods, it can claim a larger legacy than the Nemesis system and a catalogue of joy that spluttered into grimdark violence two decades ago. It’s unfair to make a direct comparison or point fingers of blame, but the idea that Monolith might have been able to carve a similar trajectory doesn’t seem wildly unrealistic. Well, aside from the studio being chained inside WB’s ivory tower, presumably unable to spread its wings with quite the same latitude as Obsidian. Perhaps Monolith’s lasting legacy is as a cautionary tale, a legend to be passed down through the generations of what happens when success brings the eyes of the real big bucks, and how choosing which of the big buck operators is best isn’t immediately obvious if long-term survival is the goal. If the horrors of gambling on the tastes and moods of the corporate overlord is one lesson, the other lies with the horror of rights management and licensing. Both N.O.L.F. 3 and TRON 3.0 would require such wrangling with lawyers to get permission to exist that it’s completely understandable why they never had a chance when given the curve they both would sit on, they would have been superb videogames. Between TRON, Aliens v Predator and Lord of the Rings, Monolith tied itself, willingly or otherwise, to the third-party IP mast for over two decades when Obsidian didn’t. Maybe that’s the crucial difference in terms of biz strats for hypercreative, fun, studios to pay attention to.4 The rights issues are particularly infuriating in N.O.L.F.’s case. The only way to experience them now is to buy the vintage media or pirate them, both of which I heartily encourage. It won’t help Monolith one bit, but then as of the 25th of February 2025, nothing will, and fuck you, Warner Bros. “That’s all, folks” indeed.
[21]
Or, for that matter, Rocksteady.
Maybe three reboots of Batman within a decade was a bit much?
OR IMMERSIVE SIM, IF YOU MUST USE OFFENSIVELY OPAQUE, LARGELY MEANINGLESS TERMINOLOGY.
Once again, Arkane's eggs all being in the Blade basket does not fill me with overflowing rivers of hope.