Yesterday, Warner Bros announced it was closing Monolith Productions in a "strategic change of direction". A studio with a 30-year legacy, Monolith's games include Blood, No One Lives Forever, Tron 2.0, Condemned: Criminal Origins, and more recently its excellent Middle-earth tie-ins Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, which introduced the remarkable Nemesis System. Amid the shock and anger at what seems an inexplicable decision, tributes have poured in for the studio and its incredible library of games. Among these is a double-barrelled blast of affection from GOG, which has accelerated its preservation efforts for one of Monolith's best games, as well as offering it at a deep discount for the next few days.
That game is FEAR Platinum, which bundles Monolith's fantastic shooter with its two expansions, Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate. Released in 2005, FEAR combined eye-popping bullet-time action with Japanese horror influences and some of the best enemy AI ever committed to code. Its shotgun is also my second favourite weapon in any FPS, behind only Unreal Tournament's mighty flak cannon.
GOG commemorates FEAR in two ways. First, it's accelerating the game's inclusion into its preservation program, designed to ensure old games remain playable and compatible on modern systems forever (or at least, as long as GOG is around). Posting on X, GOG explained that this inclusion into the preservation program had originally been "scheduled for a later timeframe", but due to Monolith's closure, it has opted to enrol the shooter into it by next month "to properly recognise Monolith's contributions to gaming."
F.E.A.R. Platinum – featuring the base game and both expansions – will be available as part of the GOG Preservation Program by next month. Originally scheduled for a later timeframe, we’ve decided to accelerate this release to properly recognize Monolith’s contributions to… pic.twitter.com/efu8872vx1February 26, 2025
Second, GOG is currently offering a 90% discount on its current version of FEAR Platinum from now until Friday. This means it's currently available for less than a pound in the UK, and around a dollar in the US. I don't recall much about FEAR's expansions, having not played them since they were released. But I've returned to vanilla FEAR numerous times over the years, and it's an absolute must-play for any FPS fan, and easily worth that price on its own.
In its statement, GOG also says this isn't the only game from FEAR's developer in line for the preservation program, with "other Monolith icons to join eventually as well." Currently, the only Monolith game in the preservation program is Middle-earth: Shadow of War, so GOG could be referring to any of the others. But the likely candidates are Tron 2.0 and Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, as those are both already available on the GOG store.
Monolith's current project was a Wonder Woman game, which it began working on in 2021 after Warner Bros cancelled the project the studio began after Middle-earth: Shadow of War. Like the Middle-earth games, Wonder Woman would have used the Nemesis system, which Warner Bros patented after Shadow of Mordor released, then proceeded to release one game that used it in 11 years. Wonder Woman's former narrative designer, G.D Annin, said on Bluesky that the game "was going to be AMAZING", though reports from November last year suggested the project was in trouble, having been rebooted in 2024 and still years away from launch. While I personally don't have much investment in Wonder Woman as a character, I definitely would have played the game, because it was being made by Monolith.
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