Will Monolith ascend and become an AAA dev again?

I'm really enjoying Shadow of Mordor at the moment, despite its shortcomings and I'm near the ending. I really like the idea of more emergent gameplay it is going for (just like Sunset Overdrive), although it's not perfect and the world could've been even more populated with meaningful and varied tasks to do, but it still is very enjoyable.

The game's engine works so well on current gen consoles, antialiasing system is amazing and what's most astonishing is they made it all using their own Lith-Tech engine.

Anyway, with the runaway success of Shadow of Mordor and some really good sales, do you think Monolith will be given more chances to prove themselves by Warner Brothers? Will we ever see another quality FEAR game by them now? Or will they be reduced to WB's bitch only making this franchise?

They are decent developers. Hopefully they'll continue to make good games. They should revisit some of the old franchises as well. Don't know if they'll be given a free hand to innovate like they did back in FEAR days.

Monolith's past works were hit or miss. Shadow of Mordor is fantastic gameplay (combat and parkour) and mechanics (Nemesis system) wise, which means they have the necessary skill in that department.

However, in areas such has world building and storytelling, they need to step up abit. Atleast those are my impressions from SoM anyway.

The more good devs the better. Also, they're pretty good at optimizing their games aswell

They wasted so much of storytelling on these optional Artifacts with memories instead of adding something more to the main storyline. However, they also managed to avoid all of the Lords of the Ring cliches that plague films like Hobbit, etc.

Monolith has always been one of my favourite developers of all time.

No one Lives forever 1 and 2...classics.

Same goes for AvP2, Tron 2.0 and Fear 1 and 2.

I've played a few hours of morder. Was okay fun, but it was lord of the rings (which I hate) and it felt way too much like Assassins Creed, which I've gotten bored of completely after 2 million creed games played.

But hopefully this morder success Means they will stay in business. And maybe one day they will make a no one lives forever game Again :D

I want a Blood remaster or just straight up re-release on PSN. I loved that game.

I honestly can't keep playing Shadow of Mordor, far too frustrating. I really like monolith so this success is great for them, I hope the go far away from this game though as for me its a huge let down.

"Will Monolith ascend and become an AAA dev again?"

Uh they just made the Gamespot Game Of The Year, I'd say they are comfortably a AAA dev.

There's a source port that really improves the game. You could check that out. Works on pretty much any computer made post 2003.

They always have been. Always will be ?

I have a feeling we're gonna see alot of Middle Earth games from them.

Calling it, the next one is called Rise of Mordor

Probably not.

Pretty sure Mordor has performed way above expectation (especially critically). Monolith will get new chances with a bigger budget unless WB are mad.

I really hope they can afford to hire a bigger world building team (or wtf it's called). The dull enviroment was by far my biggest issue with SoM.

Yeah. They'll make 2 or 3 more Lord of the Rings games, and they'll go downhill, and then be back to making B-tier games, or close up.

There's nothing more I want than a sequel for Shadow of Mordor (Witcher 3 is an exception). This series can be an awesome series.

On-topic:

They should stay away from FEAR and make a new No One Lives Forever.

Damn son, I'd kill for a new Shogo.

It was Titanfall before Titanfall. Awesome shooter.

Word. At least something we can finally agree on.

I think the game's biggest problem was probably the IP. LOTR kinda limits the imagination.

thats not how it works.

Monolith hasnt made games that have been successful in a long time, Shadow of Mordor is their golden egg right now but it isnt as successful as you think. It only has a Meta of 8.4 and a user score of 8.0. It got just an 8.0 here on GS.

Just becuz one site gives you the GOTY in a year of lackluster games, doesnt mean your game was the greatest game of that year. Its only one site after all, and the same site only gave it an 8.0

so it indicates that Monoliths is kinda close to making successful AAA game again, but not there yet. To say the are comfortably an AAA dev is incorrect. They are on their way if they keep making good games that keep getting 8s and 9s. Comfortably a AAA dev is a dev that has had multiple AAA sucessful games in general continuous time. Like ND, before the Uncharted success, they werent AAA devs. But their constant releases of mega successful legit AAA games has them comfortably as a legit P4P AAA dev.

And it's Meta/GS score just makes it's GOTY status over Divinity even weaker.

@Salt_The_Fries: waiting for sheep in toad avarars to come in talking about xenoblade ... thinking the tread title was about nintendo..lol

Anyway nolf, and fear were amazing. I actually prefer fear 2 to the first one , due to variety, most don't though.

Need to play mordor, do u get different loot or is it only level up your existing gear? And is there story, all I ever seen of the game is slaying hoards of similar orcs.

Just give me a new blood and a new Shogo game

That would be appropriate. I'd expect an expansion to the rest of Middle Earth, so players get to roam around less desolate places (places outside of Mordor itself).

Will Monolith ever make a game as good as No One Lives Forever, AVP2, Fear or the original Condemned? probably not. Mordor is cool and all, but they are a long way away from being that studio that used to beast at first person combat. At the least it's nice to see after the shit stain that was Fear 2 and some of their other work they are capable of bouncing back. I do however expect them to end up on another Lord of the Rings game.

Because the game butchers everything that made the original a brilliant action in the first place. Let's take out obvious PC shooter things like lean n peak, lets take away the bicycle kick, let's completely compromise the AI with environments that turn the shootouts into basic wack-a-mole, let's tone down the gunplay to make it work better on a gamepad, let's end the game with a first person sequence of the player being raped by a ghost.

Game sucked so much.

They were NEVER AAA developers and quite frankly, I don't see them ever being AAA devs. They don't have the talent. Just because they released a good 7/10 game in a year full of garbage games does not make them great. The competition was garbage this year. Many gamers are calling 2014 the worst year in gaming since the gaming crash in 1983. That is quite telling.

And LOL at nintendo fanboys thinking nintendo had a great year. They had nothing until MK8 on may 29th and MK8 is a 7/10/same old stuff I played 20 years ago. Then they had nothing until SSB4 in December and once again...same old game I played 20 years ago. Nintendo had a horrible year, but nintendo's defense force will claim it was amazing despite getting only a couple average/decent/meh games only nintendo fans like.

Sorry bros, but not everyone likes mario kart or SSB. If you don't, then nintendo had the worst year out of the 3. At least the PS4 and Xbone had much better 3rd party games worth playing.

What does nintendo has to do with this thread . Also we are talking about a dev that released games such as Blood, shogo, no one lives forever, Fear and condemned

Raven software also made some beastly shooters, damn I miss the old school devs.

I really enjoyed condemned for what it did, but it is pretty clunky, and overly cutscene heavy IMO. I dislike button prompts to perform simple actions like jumping from a ledge. I also disliked how you weren't in control of the tools you used to solve crimes. Again, you'd just get a button prompt to pull out a specific tool in specific areas of the level.

But I loved the type of game it was being a crime investigation where you are no more powerful than the enemies, and the weapon system was nifty especially the guns. I'd love more games like that.

1. Monolith is the topic of this thread. The OP asked if they can become a AAA dev again based on the success of Shadow of Mordor which won GOTY on gamespot.

2. I pointed out they were never a AAA developer.

3. I pointed out the only reason they were successful this year is because of the poor competition.

4. I pointed out some of the poor competition which happens to be Nintendo's games which have been overhyped and overrated by game journalists and fanboys this year. I could have just as easily bashed Destiny(flop), Watch Dogs(flop), South Park(good game but not GOTY worthy) and several others.

5. Most people agree Dragon Age 3 should have got GOTY.

I see no problem with my post as it all relates to each other. Monolith is a B-list developer at best and overrating them because they had one of the best games of the year when the competition was insanely weak is nothing to be proud of.

monolith had a pretty damn good record of games until condemned ( including condemned ) and they certainly were one of the top fps developers ( and to my opinion the best of the mid 90's and early-mid 00's with Blood,No one lives forever, Fear, Shogo and probably the best movie adaptation game Aliens vs predator and also the sequel) so yeah they were AAA devs and i hope they return to what they did so great

I agree with both you. Monolith guys are great developers. Another reason for me is that I'm huge Lords of the Rings fan.

Soldier of Fortune 2 is still my one of the most favorite games of all time. Damn, they don't make games like that anymore. New devs are not as creative as those guys used to be.

Well, the popular publishing philosophy is if a developer makes a great game, milk it to death. Expect more Shadow of Mordor one way or another. Monolith may gain a revived reputation with this IP, or WBIE could hand over the series to another dev as people follow the IPs and not that talent that makes them. There's any number of outcomes regarding Monolith. For instance, WBIE could have Monolith milk Shadow of Mordor until it won't sell anymore, whereby they can either assign Monolith new projects or just dissolve the studio. Or they could assign the franchise over to Rocksteady if the Batman sales go south and close Monolith or again assign them a new project. Or they could just go back to having Monolith making stupid downloadable games threatening to close them like they did before.

sunset overdrive is garbage and incomparable to shadow of mordor. thats why it didn't win goty on X1 and nobody talks about it anymore.

Why so aggravated out of sudden?

Shadow Of Mordor mostly worked due to cloning other peoples idea's. While a decent game: it is an out and out cash in.

It seems they where at there best when making pc games: not they are a third rate console designer.

I hope so. No One Lives Forever 2 is the second best FPS of all time. Not to mention FEAR is a classic. And CLAW! Let's not forget Claw.

Not to me. I've played both and Sunset Overdrive wins my 2014 GOTY.

You got a link to this? Haven't been able to find anything concrete online about it

@Cloud_imperium: soldier of fortune 2, wasn't that the game where u could target specific body parts and they could be weakened or dismembered due to that, or am I thinking of a different game? I Love That mechanic, only games that used it are deus ex and fallout , that I can think of off hand, but I TN ought soldier of fortune did too.

why such a tool?

Yeah, that's the one.