Overview
Monolith Productions is a game development studio based in Kirkland, Washington (USA). It was established in October 1994.
Brian Goble is one of the co-founders along with
Jason Hall. Many of the people involved with the formation of Monolith previously worked at
Edmark Corporation.
The company's first game was the first-person shooter
Blood (1997), which was published by
GT Interactive. By 1998, Monolith graduated to self-publishing status, releasing several games in various genres. The company then primarily focused on first-person shooters, such as
No One Lives Forever, the
F.E.A.R. series, and others.
While still developers at Edmark, Monolith's founders decided to enter into the fiercely competitive European 'demo' scene with a Windows-based programming showcase that demonstrated the kind of gaming graphics that, at the time, were believed possible only by using DOS. This demo caught the eye of
Microsoft, with whom the Monolith founders worked on an early version of what eventually became the
LithTech 3D engine. The company retained strong links with Microsoft for a long time, and was one of the first companies to incorporate Microsoft's API technology into a product,
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division (1998). In 2000 the company
LithTech, Inc. was established to handle development and sales for the engine. After the initial version, many enhanced versions of the engine were created:
Lithtech Talon,
Lithtech Jupiter and
Lithtech Jupiter EX. That company was renamed Touchdown Entertainment in 2003.
In 2004 Monolith was acquired by
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Inc. There the studio created the
F.E.A.R. and
Condemned series as well as licensed games such as
Gotham City Impostors (2012),
Guardians of Middle-earth (2012) and
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (2014).
Games
Trivia
Awards
- The Game Awards
- 2014 — Developer of the Year — Nominated
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