Why Monolith Mattered

0:00 In the past few years, we have seen an unbearable number of layoffs

0:04 and studio shutdowns across the games industry.

0:08 It's estimated that 14,000 game developers lost their jobs in 2024,

0:13 and this year isn't looking any better.

0:16 In February alone- just February- we've seen

0:20 cuts and redundancies at Sumo Digital, Iron Galaxy,

0:23 N Dreams, Hi-Rez, Unity, Crytek, NetEase,

0:27 Night School, Bossa Games, Striking Distance, and more.

0:32 Each one of these layoffs is someone's life being upended.

0:35 And it's another talented individual who may be forced to leave

0:39 the games industry altogether if they're unable to find another posting.

0:43 It just all sucks.

0:45 But this newest one, announced yesterday- man, this one really stings.

0:50 Warner Bros just announced that it's closing

0:52 three of its studios- Player First Games, which made Multiversus,

0:56 WB Games San Diego, which was working on some unannounced project,

1:01 and- here's the big one- Monolith Productions.

1:05 Monolith is a studio I have long respected.

1:08 It's been in business since 1994,

1:10 and while it may not be as famous or storied as developers like id,

1:15 or Valve, or Infinity Ward,

1:18 its gameography is… man, it's just banger after banger.

1:23 Its back catalogue is filled with games

1:26 that are wildly inventive, ever so stylish,

1:29 and almost always pushing the industry forward

1:32 with some new technology or design innovation.

1:35 So I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge this studio's passing,

1:40 as it moves from an is to a was on Wikipedia.

1:44 And I want to do that by reminiscing

1:47 on my five favourite games made by Monolith.

1:50 Is that okay?

1:51 Can we do that?

1:52 No deep design analysis?

1:54 I just want to take a moment to pour one out

1:58 for a criminally underrated developer that deserved far better than this.

2:03 Okay.

2:04 So, back in the late 90s, I was obsessed with the Build Engine,

2:10 which was the 3D game-making tool that powered Duke Nukem 3D.

2:15 And that meant I wanted to play any and all games that used Build.

2:20 And that's how I stumbled upon Monolith's first major game, Blood.

2:25 This is a fast-paced boomer shooter with inventive

2:29 weapons like a spray can and lighter, a voodoo doll, sticks of dynamite,

2:34 and a pokey little pitchfork as your melee weapon.

2:38 Now this is a weird and often anachronistic game.

2:42 It's part Wild West, part occult fantasy,

2:45 and there's a little sci-fi thrown in there for good measure.

2:49 You play as an undead gunslinger fighting zombies and demons,

2:52 and it's all rendered with a crazy claymation aesthetic

2:56 that comes from the sprites being low-res photos of clay sculptures.

3:02 It is 100% a game of its time.

3:05 It's very 90s, which means it's packed with secrets and movie references,

3:11 and it's ridiculously hard, and the levels are complete mazes.

3:15 But it's also a lot of fun.

3:17 I played a lot of janky first-person shooters in this era,

3:23 but Blood is one I fondly remember.

3:26 Then in 2000, we got The Operative- No One Lives Forever.

3:32 This was a sassy 60s spy adventure and obvious James Bond spoof,

3:38 featuring one of gaming's coolest female characters, Kate Archer.

3:42 She's a badass secret agent whose make-up bag

3:45 and wardrobe is secretly a stash of lockpicks, lasers, and grenades.

3:51 Now, while Blood was a simple "shoot everything that moves" kind of game,

3:55 NOLF- and its excellent sequel- was a lot more cerebral.

3:59 Levels were open-ended and could be solved in multiple ways.

4:03 So you could use gadgets and stealth to avoid danger altogether,

4:07 or just go in guns blazing.

4:09 Up to you.

4:10 And the stealth was solid,

4:11 taking cues from top games like Thief- so enemies could notice dead bodies,

4:16 or even your footprints in the snow.

4:18 And on top of that, the game

4:21 had bombastic scenarios with vehicles and chase sequences,

4:24 it had a brilliant sense of style, and- best of all- tons of humour.

4:29 My favourite touch?

4:30 If you sneak up on enemies and don't kill them,

4:33 you can listen in on their conversations-

4:35 which were usually packed with jokes and references.

4:38 ENEMY: People don't realise how an unhappy family life can turn a man to crime.

4:42 This game, and its sequel, were among the best of their respective years.

4:45 They won loads of Game of the Year awards,

4:47 and were often compared positively to peers like Half-Life.

4:51 But unlike Half-Life, the NOLF games are often entirely

4:56 forgotten in conversations about genre-defining shooters.

5:00 Though that's probably due to a lack of preservation.

5:03 You can't easily revisit this one on Steam or GOG or whatever.

5:08 And that's because the game's IP rights are tied up

5:11 between multiple companies and no one really knows who owns it.

5:14 So don't expect a remaster any time soon.

5:18 But if you can't be bothered to get this thing working on Windows 11,

5:21 well, take it from me- this one was brilliant.

5:26 In 2005, Monolith returned to first-person shooters with F.E.A.R.

5:31 a crunchy, grizzly action thriller that mixes military firefights with, well,

5:38 Japanese horror movies.

5:40 Which means that the breathless

5:42 shootouts are interspersed with spooky corridors,

5:45 jump scares, and a creepy little girl called Alma.

5:48 But perhaps the game's most notable legacy was its envelope-pushing use of AI.

5:54 No, not that AI.

5:57 I mean enemy behaviour AI.

5:59 So building on work from the NOLF games,

6:02 FEAR featured a type of enemy behaviour that's legendary among AI developers.

6:07 It's called goal-oriented action planning.

6:11 So in more traditional AI systems,

6:13 enemies swap between distinct states- you know,

6:15 like idle, alert, in combat, moving to cover.

6:19 That can make them pretty stiff and predictable.

6:23 But with GOAP, an enemy has a goal- like kill the player or investigate a sound-

6:28 and then formulates a plan based on a series

6:30 of actions that should fulfil that goal.

6:33 And then it constantly readjusts its plan based on the world state.

6:38 This made enemy encounters feel more organic and erratic-

6:41 more like fighting real players than simplistic whack-a-mole baddies.

6:45 And the same tech was used in STALKER,

6:48 as part of that game's much-loved A-Life NPC system.

6:52 So you know what?

6:53 Perhaps it's time for game makers to give this tech another look.

6:56 I'll put a link in the description to AI and Games' video on the topic.

7:01 We're still in 2005, because in that same year Monolith released another banger,

7:07 Condemned: Criminal Origins.

7:09 So this is a gritty, psychological thriller inspired by serial killer movies

7:14 like Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs.

7:17 And it's another first-person shooter, right?

7:20 Well maybe not.

7:22 Because while it starts that way,

7:24 with FBI agent Ethan Thomas wandering around with a pistol,

7:28 you're quickly disarmed and forced into brutal melee tussles with your enemies.

7:32 So you'll have to create improvised weapons from the environment,

7:36 like lead pipes, planks of wood, and so on.

7:39 A bit like the new Indiana Jones game.

7:41 It becomes a game about messy,

7:44 scrappy, sweaty brawls in disgusting run-down tenements.

7:48 The fights feel visceral and in-your-face.

7:51 And the enemies are unpredictable.

7:53 Some storm towards you aggressively,

7:55 while others flee or hide in the shadows, waiting to strike later.

7:59 It's harrowing stuff.

8:00 You just kinda want to get out of there and take a shower.

8:03 It's a shame the game didn't make better use

8:05 of its forensic tools- it's no detective game- but the atmosphere?

8:09 Man, that was unmatched.

8:12 And then in 2014, we got Monolith's most ambitious game yet,

8:17 Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor.

8:19 What could have been a totally forgettable Lord of the Rings tie-in,

8:23 turned out to be one of the most bold and forward-thinking games ever created,

8:28 thanks to its prized nemesis system.

8:31 So among the cannon fodder orcs roaming the soggy marshlands of Mordor,

8:35 you've got a number of orc captains- each with a unique name,

8:40 look, personality, and set of skills.

8:43 But most importantly,

8:44 they also have a memory of their run-ins with you, the player.

8:48 So if you run away from an orc,

8:51 you might stumble upon that same ugly bugger an hour

8:53 later and they'll call you out for being a coward.

8:56 Or you might kill an orc by chopping off their leg,

8:59 only to find they secretly survived that encounter and they've

9:02 now got a prosthetic leg and a score to settle.

9:06 It made for an incredibly rich and dynamic story generation system,

9:10 with every player getting a unique narrative.

9:13 And the sequel, Shadow of War, expanded on the idea even further,

9:17 letting you create your own team of orcs and deal with backstabbing soldiers,

9:22 enemy spies, and more.

9:24 Sadly, the system was locked under a patent,

9:27 so no other developers have been able to use

9:30 a similar system for fear of getting sued.

9:32 Boo.

9:34 So that's Monolith.

9:35 Or at least, Monolith to me.

9:37 The studio made other games too, like Shogo, a Tron game,

9:41 a Matrix MMO, and a Middle-Earth MOBA, I guess.

9:46 I didn't play any of those.

9:47 But to me, of the games I played, Monolith's games all had something in common.

9:53 Each one took some interesting inspiration,

9:56 usually from movies- whether that's James Bond,

9:58 or Ring, or Se7en, or Lord of the Rings.

10:02 And then it mashed it up with some forward-thinking design or technology,

10:06 like stealth, complex AI, frantic melee combat,

10:10 or the impressive Nemesis system.

10:13 This made for games that succeeded on both style and substance.

10:18 You could enjoy these games for their story and their style,

10:21 or study them for their design and their technology.

10:24 And look, I'm not trying to tell you

10:26 that every game was some greatest of all time classic.

10:29 Monolith's games were often ugly and a little janky,

10:33 and outside of No One Lives Forever,

10:35 the environments often felt pretty same-y throughout the whole game.

10:39 A whole lot of shipping containers and office blocks.

10:42 But these were those quintessential 8 out of 10 games.

10:46 Games that were swinging for the fences,

10:48 trying something different and new, and mostly succeeding.

10:53 And I think we need that, right?

10:54 But now, it's gone.

10:56 It's in progress, Wonder Woman game is dead, and Monolith is no more.

11:01 Shut down so Warner Brothers can focus exclusively

11:04 on the franchises that make the most money.

11:07 Except when they don't.

11:08 But I'll leave the industry commentary to someone else.

11:11 I just want to say thanks and goodbye to an underrated

11:15 and underappreciated studio that has made some truly brilliant games.

11:20 Thanks, Monolith.

11:21 If you want to know more about the Nemesis system,

11:25 click here for my video on that.