| Title | No one knows who really owns No One Lives Forever now |
| Author | Nick Diamon |
| Posted in | Games |
| When | April 8, 2013 |
Activision's Dan Amrich spoke about the various complicated licensing issues surrounding the iconic 1960's spy shooter No One Lives Forever, revealing that he doesn't know who currently owns the license. In fact, no one at Activision or Monolith seems to know..
Read the full articleOh, NOLF 3. What I wouldn't give.....
Who owns the rights to NOLF?!? ppl are dumb. its a reality.
YOU IDIOTS!
This saddens me to no end... I absolutely LOVED NOLF and its fantastic gameplay and it's sad to see that no one even KNOWS who owns it anymore.
Can we just say that Monolith owns it and leave it at that? Then they can just make the game.
After the wonderful reboot of Tomb Raider, I was really hoping someone would make a third NOLF and bring Cate Archer back into action. It's time for more great games with amazing female protaganists! She was awesome in the first two games, and I bought both on release day. I'm already in line to pre-order NOLF 3.
I've definitely heard this story before with another franchise recently. Isn't this kind of what happened to the System Shock rights? Nobody really knew who owned it, and so nobody wanted to develop or license the property with a unknown upside for fear of litigation.
Try putting it up on GOG and those who own the rights will show up immediately, demanding their billions of $.
So how do rights get lost? I get stuff falling into the public domain gray area but that doesn't sound like what's going on here - someone owns NOLF and may not even know it? Is there not a paper trail for this kind of thing? Where's the Pope of Video Games when you need him? And if there isn't one can I have the job?
If any of the original talent is still at Monolith, they should be hounding FX for the Archer rights if NOLF is tied up. Lane Kane cleaning up after Archer anyone?
No One Lives Forever is 20 years old today. If you still own it, today’s a good day to boot it up! It also is still not available anywhere legally other than buying it from eBay, etc.
Apparently there are “Modernizers” out there if you want to do this. I cannot vouch for them so I won’t post the links, but the game may be finicky without them.
Somehow, this does not surprise me. I loved the NOLF games, though I still remember not too fondly driving snowmobiles in one of them.
I imagine it was one of those things included in a catch all paragraph of the documents involved in one of the sales of IPs or company assets, or companies themselves. Because it wasn’t specifically enumerated, and the exact context of the deal, and what was actually involved, has slipped into the abyss of the past, no one can recall exactly whether it was part of this deal. that deal, or no deal. I mean, I’m just guessing of course, but I can kind of see that happening.
I still load up and play NOLF every few years. I enjoy the exotic locations and the humor. Just like Deus Ex and Thief 2, you’re rewarded with some hilarious guard conversations if you’re stealthy.
NOLF2 is a decent sequel except for the respawing enemies. I dislike it when a FPS won’t let me 100% clear an area. There’s a NoRespawn mod I plan on using next playthrough.
These games definitely need to be on GoG, hope someone can resolve whatever is preventing that.
If someone was interested in checking the NOLF games out in 2020, this article on RPS, which I in no way endorse, might be of interest.
Thanks for the no respawn mod, Gordon. That blemish undermined the stealth system and detracted from an otherwise terrific campaign.
I see that Contract Jack is available via that link as well. I don’t remember it being there last time I looked, admittedly a few years ago.
My all-time favorite shooters, and NOLF2 made for some wonderful LAN parties in my 20s.
I, too, would love to see them come back around.
I got an email yesterday from GOG entitled “This is happening TODAY!” with screenshots that looked a LOT like NOLF (or how I remember it). I just about passed out.
Turned out it was for XIII.
Boo.
I finished a replay of the first one. Holds up pretty well, though I still hate instant-fail stealth. But at least now there are walkthroughs on YouTube, so the pain was reduced significantly.
“Have you seen Stinks?”