admin The Operative: No One Lives Forever was released on November 10, 2000. It’s very unclear the last time it was possible to buy, but it was certainly some time before 2010. Since then, the Monolith-made game has become one of the most notoriously unavailable games of all time, and it seems that this might never change. Which is calamitous, given what things of joy both NOLF and its sequel are. Yet, and lean closer so I can whisper: you can totally still play them.
NOLF is loved for good reason, and not simply due to a mix of nostalgia and longing. Protagonist Cate Archer is one of the great game characters, a wildly posh British secret agent fighting back against the puerile misogyny of 1960s Britain and the whole Bond enterprise, in a game that combined stealth and shooting in a series of increasingly entertaining action-driven levels. It was deeply funny, but it was also a fantastic entry into the genre—perhaps not a huge surprise when you look at the games Monolith went on to make next: Alien Versus Predator 2, Tron 2.0, and of course F.E.A.R. This was one of the best teams in first-person gaming. NOLF and its sequel would be, under most other circumstances, a pair of games that would be routinely celebrated and endlessly purchased a quarter-century later.
The utterly ridiculous situation surrounding these first-person shooter James Bond spoofs has been well documented, especially by Kotaku. After years of being absent from sale, various parties attempted to seek the owners of the game and request permission to re-release both games on digital platforms, only to find it was apparently impossible. GOG tried multiple times (and it remains one of their most hopelessly requested titles), and in 2014 re-release specialists Nightdive Studios took a shot, going as far as to provoke a reaction from the rights owners by registering trademarks for the games.
That worked, insomuch as Warner, who had since bought Monolith, objected enough to stymie any progress, sent threatening letters, and then astonishingly refused to even look to see if it actually owned the rights. Activision, which had since bought Vivendi, which had since bought Sierra Entertainment which published the game on PS2, also said it was unable to discover if it had any claim to the game, although people within the company tried digging and suggested it did not.
The Windows release, meanwhile, was published by Fox Interactive, which went defunct in 2006, but after also being sold to Vivendi. So that means Activision owns that aspect too. But then Fox is now owned by Disney, and most of its gaming properties went with it, so maybe the Mouse has something? Oh, and of course Activision was bought by Microsoft. Fuck’s sake!
So that leaves us with three of the biggest media corporations in the world, Microsoft, Disney, and Warner Bros. (which is currently trying to sell itself too) all potentially owning the rights to this poor little game, and none of them even vaguely inclined to figure it out. The result being a pair of wonderful games that are lost to capitalist misery.
Or are they?
Well, legally, yes they are. But when the law is an ass…
Downloading games that are available for sale is piracy. It’s illegal, and it’s not supportive of developers and their art. But when companies have gone out of their way to refuse to take your money for a game for the better part of two decades, it’s a very different situation. Look, I’m not your real mom and dad, and I can’t tell you what to do. But if you were to click on this link and download both games (as well as spin-off Contract Jack), you’d end up with modernized versions of these classic games, with mods that allow them to work on Windows 10 and 11, and in widescreen. And what better time to do (or not do) this than on the first game’s 25th anniversary?
Seriously, I just got distracted for an entire hour from writing this piece by playing the amazing opening level for the 950th time. After a slightly frustrating sequence shooting guards to protect an ambassador, you get to the first proper level of shooting many, many more guards around a giant hotel, combining a need to protect clients and staff from the gunmen, in a game that feels like the lighthearted sister of Deus Ex. It’s as fun now as it was 25 years ago.
The so-called “modernized” version runs at ultra-widescreen resolutions as big as 3440 x 1440 with no problems at all. (I should note, though, that I used the pre-Windows 10 version, which ran just fine, rather than the more recent build that I couldn’t get to launch at all. For those struggling with launching it, don’t set the resolution from the launch window, but rather wait until you’re in-game. It can be set there without crashing everything.)
At this point (as indeed it was over eight years ago, the last time I suggested just downloading it, to no negative response at all) we have to consider No One Lives Forever to be abandonware. No one is willing to take ownership of it, although those that could do so sometimes mindlessly threaten to intervene should anyone else try to rebuild it for sale. Nightdive were scared off a decade ago, and it’s been sitting on GOG’s Dreamlist since that launched earlier this year (with 87,171 people saying they’d pay for it if they could). It’s far too small of a concern for any of the megacorps who might own it to spend the time and money to work out if they do, but it’s far too big of a concern within gaming history to be allowed to just disappear. Thank goodness for the anonymous heroes running NOLF Revival. I thank them for their service.
Happy 25th, NOLF. You’ve been done a horrible disservice by time and corporate stupidity, but you remain an all-time classic.
