One Of The Best Games Ever Turns 25, And You Still Can't Buy It

"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."

"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."

"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."

The Operative: No One Lives Forever launched on November 10, 2000 and became unavailable for purchase some time before 2010. The Monolith-made game later became infamously hard to acquire because of tangled ownership and rights issues. Cate Archer stars as a posh British secret agent who subverts 1960s misogyny and Bond conventions through stealth-and-shooting gameplay and strong comedy. Monolith’s team later produced Alien Versus Predator 2, Tron 2.0, and F.E.A.R., underscoring the studio’s quality. Multiple re-release attempts by GOG and Nightdive encountered objections from Warner, though both games remain playable by other means.

Read at Kotaku