At the time, doubts about the game circled within the industry, based on the lackluster reception of the second and third The Matrix films and an overcrowded MMORPG market.
People who are aware of the simulation (players) are referred to as "redpills" because they have taken the red pill (or, in very rare cases, when a character has self-substantiated out of the Matrix on their own).
Following the choice between the two pills, the player is then taken through a basic tutorial of the game's mechanics, including mission interaction and the combat system.
After the tutorial, they are then free to roam the Mega City (the large metropolis that the entire Matrix story is set in).
Free-fire mode allows for large gun battles to take place, while Interlock is often broken down into bullet-time-affected martial arts moves and close-quarters gunfire.
Hackers manipulate the code of the Matrix to affect friends and enemies from a distance, either damaging them, downgrading their combat abilities, or healing them and upgrading their powers.
Operatives are the common soldiers seen from the movies - Martial Artists, Gunmen, and the new Spy class, which revolves around stealth fighting and knife throwing.
For each round, the two players' accuracies are pitted against each other's defenses, which are slightly affected by a random "luck" roll.
All combat takes place in "real-time", and large-scale battles are often decided by the sheer numbers of forces of one side versus others.
Items that characters drop in the game world can be picked up, granting powers to the player that lugs them around.
These classes then branch out into sub-classes, with Coder, for example, is divided into Programmer (out of a battle item and ability maker) and Code Shaper (creates simulacrums to fight with, similarities to a necromancer/summoner in other MMOG's).
Zion/Nirvana: Zion is the last remaining human city on Earth, hidden deep underground and is concerned chiefly with protecting its citizens from the Machines who see those who have "awakened" as a threat to those still connected to the Matrix.
This mostly involves giving all human beings the opportunity to question the true nature of their "reality", the Matrix, and to have the choice of the red or blue pill.
During the time that Cryptos was revealed to be a Machine Program inhabiting a redpill's body, Veil assumed control of the organization.
Another of The Matrix Online's defining and differentiating aspects was its inclusion and emphasis on what was called "The Continuing Story".
[5] However, when The Matrix Online moved to Sony Online Entertainment, the program underwent a radical change in direction as part of similar changes to the other story telling devices, most importantly, the scale and frequency of live events following the departure of a dedicated Live Events Team.
[6] The days leading up to the closing, as well as the end of the servers themselves, were chronicled on the gaming website Giant Bomb in a video series titled "Not Like This", a reference to a line in the first of the Matrix films.
Visitors were greeted with an invitation to peruse the official memory book, which had been posted as a parting gift to the fans.