'No One Lives Forever': Adam Church and the IP rights...

It's been stated in the previous No One Lives Forever article that the game was originally going to have a dead serious tone in the beginning, with the main character was revealed to be a male spy working for MI0, known as "Her Majesty's Most Secret Service", with the game was set in 1964, taking place in a few European countries. As you know, the product was announced at E3 1999, and was compared severely to the James Bond franchise and its sole high-quality video game at the time, GoldenEye 007, which was equally a First-Person Shooter. No One Lives Forever was something in similar vein, but was never related to the 007 saga at all. However, MGM thought otherwise...

Adam Church was told to be the protagonist of the game who had to help out a German scientist, Dr. Otto Dentz, from east to west. And as things don't go entirely in plan, and the mission goes awry, Church's sole objective was to prevent a world wide conspiracy presented by the terrorist organization called HARM. The basic story survived the development, but the changes in the outlines are truly noticeable. The reason for scrapping out the Adam Church character, and replacing him with a female character to "get away from Bond" with the addition of changing the genre into more of a comedy-themed in the mould of Our Man Flint or Get Smart than leaving it in a dead serious tone was because of MGM threatening Fox Interactive and Monolith to start legal action for "stealing" their property's outlines, thinking that the games company has been stealing all the ideas from MGM/Danjaq's 007 franchise. Completely absurd. Here's the proof...

MGM threatens Monolith to take a legal action if the similarities to the James Bond franchise aren't terminated.

Overall, we haven't seen how Adam Church looks like and it's a shame we have lost a colourful character and a serious spy concept. But, on the bright side, we earned an incredibly beautiful and smoothly smart Cate Archer instead, and a very groovy 1960s spy thriller with the elements of dry humour and action! Fans of No One Lives Forever still demand to see a third installment in the series, but it appears both Monolith, who are acquired by Warner Bros. since 2003, and Sierra/Vivendi, who are merged with Activision Blizzard, aren't available. Sierra Entertainment published No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in HARM's Way and the interquel spin-off Contract JACK, but apparently, they didn't hold the rights to the franchise, nor does Monolith. Activision Community manager, Dan Amrich, stated that the company has no access to No One Lives Forever's IP and its rights.

"The person who I normally talk to about that stuff does not believe that we currently have the rights," said Amrich. "They've never seen it. They've never been given the permission to put that stuff on Good Old Games. They basically said, 'if we had it, I would love to have been able to reissue those games". Amrich continued his investigation by asking Monolith, where his trail got cold. "I contacted a friend at Monolith and he doesn't know." He continued "At this time I do not believe Activision has the rights to No One Lives Forever, so if there were to be a reissue or remake or something like that, it wouldn't come from Activision," he concluded. "I don't know what the future holds for No One Lives Forever, but I don't think that that future involves Activision".

Dan Amrich discusses Monolith's No One Lives Forever.

Activision, not owning the rights to the franchise is a spectacular thing to know, as they have ruined the First-Person Shooter genre ever since they've released their first Call of Duty game, which was as rubbish as the Battlefield series for which Electronic Arts published. It's better not to have a third No One Lives Forever game, than have one which ends up being a trashy Call of Duty/Battlefield clone, with no challenge presented in the product. Not to mention, a pathetic storyline they would write which fits the taste of the "modern" audience and the politically correct balderdash. Who owns the rights to No One Lives Forever? That subject still remains unknown.