The Operative: No One Lives Forever (abbreviated as NOLF) is a first-person shooter video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Fox Interactive, released for Windows in 2000.

A story-driven game set in the 1960s, No One Lives Forever received critical acclaim for its stylistic representation of the era in the spirit of many spy films and television series of that decade, as well as for its humor.

Enemies are aware of noise made by the player, including footsteps and weapon fire, and they also react to footprints in the snow, and dead bodies left lying around.

[3] To aid in stealthy approaches, Cate gains access via Unity's "Toy Shop" to a variety of spy gadgetry disguides as female accessories, such as a barrette that can be used for Lock picking, sunglasses that include a minature camera, exploding lipstick, and sleep-inducing perfume.

Achieving a high mission rank increases the player's maximum health, armor and ammo capacity, as well as stealth, the amount of inflicted damage, and the accuracy of their shots.

[10] During this long time for finding a publishing partner, No One Lives Forever "mutated constantly in order to please prospective producers and marketing departments.

"[14] After finally signing a contract with Fox (with whom partnership was announced to the public on August 24, 1999),[15][16] the team was able to draft a mission statement, which stood as a point of reference during every aspect of developing the game.

organization; the defection of an East German biophysicist for information about a top-secret Soviet weapons program; the presence of humor in the game; some locations, such as the sunken cargo freighter; the use of gadgets, such as the rocket-launching briefcase; etc.

"[19] As a result, the player controls a female protagonist in the final game, Cate Archer, who works for an organization called UNITY.

This was changed after a Scottish producer of the game felt that the particular accent used was too lower class, and an inappropriate choice; Harris re-recorded her lines with a "British bent" instead.

"[10] Other positive aspects of the process included the aforementioned mission statement, along with the flexible systems used in development, the cohesion of the team, and effective scheduling.

[31] For example, No One Lives Forever's team-based multiplayer portion was originally going to be a story-driven cooperative gameplay mode (similar to the "Assault" game type in the 1999 first-person shooter Unreal Tournament), including objectives and obstacles for the two teams.

[6][23][27][32] Like the single-player story in the game, this gameplay mode was also going to incorporate humor; for example, in one map, a goal of each team was to find a special watermelon for a mayor in a Moroccan marketplace.

The situations, villains, weapons, gadgets, story, dialogue, and scope are inspired by sources as diverse as Our Man Flint, various Bond films, Where Eagles Dare, Charade, The Avengers, Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, Get Smart, Danger: Diabolik, Modesty Blaise, and countless other shows, films, and novels from the era, as well as numerous historical references.

[23][41] When it was decided that NOLF was going to be a 1960s spy game, lead designer Craig Hubbard started immersing himself in the subject matter, in order to "develop some fluency" in it.

"[41] During the course of the game, the player can hear explicit popular culture references, including the TV series The Prisoner and The Fugitive, the Matt Helm films The Silencers and The Ambushers,[ii] and exotica musicians Les Baxter and Sondi Sodsai.

[iii] Other conversations allude to major events of the time, such as the studio years of The Beatles,[iv] and the commercial failure of the Edsel automobile.

"[44] The soundtrack for the original version of No One Lives Forever (as well as the later Mac OS X port) was chiefly composed and produced by Guy Whitmore.

[49][50] The Operative: No One Lives Forever was originally released for Windows in the United States on November 10, 2000, by Fox Interactive,[51] after it went gold on October 20.

[52] The team also released the source code for NOLF (version 1.003 on Windows) that year to "support the fan base by offering the tools to create their own levels".

[63] A port of No One Lives Forever – Game of the Year Edition for the Mac OS X operating system was developed by MumboJumbo, and published by MacPlay.

Similarly to the Windows version of the game, the Mac OS X port also uses GameSpy technology for its online multiplayer mode, allowing players to play with each other, no matter which platform they use.

[65][66] With the rise of digital distribution of video games in the latter part of the 2000s, there has been speculation about a possible re-release, or even a remake of the titles in the No One Lives Forever series.

Even parties that have strong ties to the IP, including video game publisher Activision and NOLF designer Craig Hubbard, have publicly admitted not knowing the precise legal situation of the series, as of May 2014[update].

In April 2013, Activision community manager Dan Amrich attempted to explain the acquisition history of the No One Lives Forever IP in a public video.

In order to find out the legal details behind NOLF, Amrich asked his colleagues, saying that "[t]he person that I normally talk to about this stuff does not believe that we [at Activision] currently have the rights.

Amrich also asked a friend of his who worked at NOLF developer Monolith (since acquired by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment), who also did not know who the IP belonged to.

[78][9][4][3][84] In his review, GameSpot's Erik Wolpaw gave No One Lives Forever a score of 9.3 out of 10, and praised the "game's unrelenting inventiveness [which] shows in virtually every aspect of its design.

"[90] In a 2010 online PC Gamer feature titled "Why you must replay No One Lives Forever", Tim Stone hailed the 10-year-old game's use of humor, and wrote that NOLF "is every bit the amusing, inventive, life-affirming experience I remembered.

This stand-alone expansion pack is a shorter game, and unlike the previous titles, its main protagonist is not Cate Archer, but John Jack, who works for H.A.R.M.