I usually reminisce about No One Lives Forever on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s related to external stimuli, and other times it just pops into my head, and every time it happens, it’s a mix of feelings. Some are very good and others… well, I’ll tell you the story and let you name them yourself, what do you think?

I’ll start by noting that the reason I was reminded of NOLF and its sequels on this occasion was an article dedicated to abandonware published a few days ago by my colleague Juan, which I highly recommend reading, especially if you’re combing some gray hair and/or you’re comfortable with nostalgia. In my case, a simple mention of the term abandonware translates to several hours dedicated to reminiscing some of those games, whether from the first generation of home computers (Spectrum, MSX, Amstrad CPC, etc.), from consoles from a few decades ago, or, as in this case, from the history of PC video games.

This article has, quite wisely, emphasized the peculiar legal limbo in which some of these games find themselves. At first glance, these are the most common situations:

• The owner died without ever transferring the copyright to another entity.
• The owner is still in business, but no longer sells the software and spends no time or money defending his rights.
• It is not clear who the current copyright holder is, so it is not possible for anyone to buy, defend or claim the copyright.

The second case is by far the least complex from a legal point of view, because the ownership is clear and active. As for users, including the creator community, the former is also an open door for them to act freely, because if there is no owner of the rights, who will claim them? However, in order to talk about No One Lives Forever, we need to look at the third of the assumptionswhich I personally also find by far the most outrageous.

The video game sector is quite dynamic, with some companies buying others, some closing and others acquiring their rights, with the most exotic distribution contracts… in short, a group of many actors, each with their own interests, and among the games exposed to these movements. And gamers, as surprising as it may seem for an industry that cries all day about piracy, would obviously like to be able to pay for re-releases of quite a few of these games.

A perfect example of this is GOG, you know, Good Old Games, a store specializing in classic games, where we can find great pieces from childhood and youth at more than reasonable prices (especially during their sales). I’m putting my hand in the fire and I won’t burn myself when I say that if No One Lives Forever ever made it to GOG or any other digital store, its sales volume would be more than remarkable. The problem is that today it is impossible.

In case you don’t know him, No One Lives Forever is a game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Fox Interactive. and what was it published in 2000. It was a shooter with stealth elements and a 60s aesthetic, clearly inspired by the action and spy movies of the time. In the game, we put ourselves in the shoes of Cate Archer, a secret agent who works for the international organization UNITY during the Cold War. The game also had refined humor that added to the gaming experience to make it memorable.

After overwhelming success with critics and the public, and a special edition that added a new mission to the original game, in 2002, the second part of the series saw the light of day, No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in HARM’s Way, which managed to maintain the bar of its predecessor and win our hearts. To this day, more than two decades later, both titles are still highly remembered and highly regarded, as you can see in the Metacritic tab for both the first and second.

And why can’t it be bought? Well, because after a flurry of mergers and acquisitions and so on, no one knows for sure who owns the rights to both titles and all other intellectual property associated with No One Lives Forever. Threading on what happened to the studio and distributor, it’s unclear whether the rights are from Activision (pending acquisition by Microsoft), 20th Century Fox (now owned by The Walt Disney Company), or Warner Bros.

Over the years, there have been several attempts by indie publishers to re-release them, remake them, and simply bring back to life a franchise that was and could have been so much more. But of course, this is absolutely impossible if the question of ownership of intellectual property rights is not clear. And notwithstanding their request to the prospective owners of the same, they didn’t lift a finger.

The problem is that these three companies additionally state that they might be the owners of the rights, but take no steps to clarify. On the contrary, they hide behind the fact that the operations in which the intellectual property of No One Lives Forever took place even before the digitization of all documentation, the so-called contracts must be in a box gathering dust in storage from their offices.

According to an investigation by developer Night Dive, who wanted to relaunch both games at the time, the legal tangle is as follows: No One Lives Forever and its sequels were developed by Monolith, now owned by Warner Bros. NOLF was created by LithTech, which is now also owned by Warner Bros. However, the first game was published by Fox Interactive, and there is some question whether 20th Century Fox or even Activision may have partial rights to the series, due to Activision’s 2008 merger with Vivendi, a separate media company that acquired Fox Interactive in 2003.

The problem is that they aren’t willing to lift a finger to find out if they own the game’s intellectual property… unless of course someone tries to modify it. So when Night Dive communicated their intentions in this regard, the response was that if they found that they owned the intellectual property, they would see each other in court. The curious thing was that in that case, with lawyers involved, they were willing to rummage through the boxes in the warehouse. You can read more about Night Dive’s frustrating experience with its plans to bring No One Lives Forever back on Kotaku.

As it is, the three would-be owners of No One Lives Forever’s intellectual property aren’t willing to lift a finger to prove their ownership of the rights (or their denial), but they’re as excited as a pack of hyenas around a badly wounded one. antelopes from being able to unleash their legions of lawyers on any initiative like Night Dive. I think this, this attitude, perfectly describes what IP management companies have become over the years. Meanwhile, the community regularly publishes revisions of No One Lives Forever 1 and 2 to be used on current operating systems.

If you’re familiar with the case, you probably think I’ve forgotten (or don’t know) that the developer and distributor released not two, but three titles in the saga, and that I’m therefore forgetting CONTRACT JACK, published in November 2003 and intended to expand the NOLF universe . No, I haven’t forgotten… unfortunately, but I think the best thing we can do for good memories of NOLF is to forget about the failed title.